Hamala: Batelco Group is making progress in its expansion with ongoing ability to make progress in some very tough competitive markets resulting in good financial results and growth in customer numbers, according to Batelco Group CEO, Alan Whelan, said.
“The total subscriber base has grown to over 9.5 million across the 14 geographies of operation, representing 6% growth year on year. The growth in numbers is mainly attributable to the take up of mobile and broadband services due to the ongoing and increasing demand for data solutions that can be today considered a necessity by many,” the Group CEO said, while commenting on the financials of 2014.
“We have been working closely across all our operations on pooling Group resources, technology and expertise in order to enhance competitiveness and performance, and we are very pleased with the progress made,” he said.
“We will continue to focus on executing the strategy outlined to our shareholders at last year’s AGM, investing in both strengthening our existing networks, rolling out our Fibre network and growing our subscriber base through the delivery of world class solutions,” Whelan added.
For the year, contributions from operations outside of Bahrain increased both as a percentage of revenues and EBITDA. At year-end 2014, 58% of revenues and 55% of EBITDA were sourced from overseas markets with overall performance particularly enhanced by good performances at the companies under the SURE umbrella and Dhiraagu in the Maldives.