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By Gulam Ali Khan
Muscat - With telecom service providers continuing to face a decline in conventional revenue streams, such as voice and SMS, due to the increasing availability of over-the-top (OTT) services, Omani operators are seeing their revenues being mainly driven by demand for data.
Omantel's group revenue for the first nine months of 2016 increased 4.3 per cent to RO399.8mn, compared with RO383.3mn for the same period of 2015.
“The growth is mainly driven by broadband revenues, by 15 per cent, and wholesale revenues, by 26 per cent. Conventional revenue streams such as voice and SMS have continued their declining trend due to over-the-top (OTT) services,” Omantel said in a report released to the Muscat Securities Market last week.
Omantel's group net profit rose by 4.8 per cent to RO95.1mn from RO90.8mn for the period under review.
The company said the explosion of video services continues to be the key driver for a growing broadband market. This year has “already seen the global launch of Netflix and Omantel launched its own IPTV solutions, further driving broadband speed and bandwidth demand, both for mobile and fixed services.”
Omani Qatari Telecommunications Co's (Ooredoo) revenues for the January-September period of 2016 grew 8.1 per cent to RO201.9mn, compared with RO186.8mn in the same period of 2015. Ooredoo's net profit grew by 16.4 per cent to RO37.6mn from RO32.3mn.
“Our growth is largely driven by the huge increase in data demand, both in the mobile and fixed markets; which is met by some of our new products and services,” Jorgen Latte, acting CEO of Ooredoo Oman, said in the company report.
Omantel noted that the continuous evolution of OTT players in the domains of voice, messaging and content put pressure on the capacity of telecom operators to continue their current levels of investment.
The company said a set of substantial changes in the regulatory framework (including the introduction of a third mobile network operator, the new Access & Interconnection Regulation and a new Telecom Law) which are expected to come into effect in 2017 will “alter the competitive force in the market”.
“Combined, these market dynamics will likely pose challenges for growth opportunities,” it added.
Omantel said its total domestic subscriber base (including mobile and fixed businesses) stood at 3.33mn (excluding mobile resellers) as of September 2016, compared with 3.38mn a year earlier. Its total subscriber base including mobile resellers reached 4.45mn.
On the other hand, Ooredoo Oman said its total customer base grew by 5.6 per cent to 2.92mn at the end of September 2016 compared with 2.77mn for the same period of 2015.
“The increase in our customer base also reflects our award-winning customer experience, which we continue to innovate and build upon, across all of our touch points,” Latte said.
© Muscat Daily 2016
