Saudi Zain 31 December 2009 Earnings Announcement

 

Two announcements from Saudi Zain on 2009 results at the Tadawul (Saudi Stock Exchange) today.  One the commentary.  The second a summary of results.

The commentary on results begins by noting achievements:

1. 6 million subscribers or 18% market share.  As I posted earlier a very key metric especially in a market with over 100% penetration is spend per subscriber.  Apparently, there are a lot of fairly inactive "chips" in the Kingdom being claimed as subscribers by all the major telecom firms.
2. Company is offering voice, text and broadband services.
3. Extension of coverage to 83% of the inhabited areas of the Kingdom.
4. An gross operating profit of SAR 877 million.  Note this is before other expenses.
5. Then a quote of the auditors' "emphasis of matter" - which by the way is roughly 64% of the entire commentary so SZ is not putting too much sugar on the news.

Financial results:

1. Net loss of SAR3.099 billion versus net loss of SAR2,278 billion.  (Recall from my earlier post that amortization of SZ's license fee is a major expense burden).
2. Loss per share SAR2.21 versus SAR1.63 in 2008.
3. Gross operating profit of SAR877 million versus SAR16 million in 2008.
4. Loss from Operations of SAR2.467 billion versus SAR1.7 billion in 2008.
5. Greater loss due to fact that in 2008 (18 month period) the company was not fully in operations so 2009's cost of operations, marketing, and financing were higher.  While it is noted that for four months out of the extended 2008 reporting period the company had no revenues, clearly operating expenses were the cause for the increase in 2009's loss.

You'll notice that the numbers above differ from those in my earlier post.  That post was based on preliminary numbers.  The final audited numbers are here.

Other posts on SZ can be accessed using the label "Saudi Zain".