(MENAFN- Times of Oman) Pricing strategy for international calls would be the key for state-run Oman Telecommunications as another player, Nawras has been awarded the right to use its own international gateway and is likely to operate from 2010, Global Investment House (GIH) said in a report.
The competition in the fixed-line sector would also intensify with the award of the second fixed-line licence to Nawras, thereby ending Omantel's monopoly in the business even though the latter has a strong presence by virtue of its presence as an incumbent player, the GIH report said.
However, GIH noted that wholesale revenues from two resellers are expected to partially offset the expected decline in marketshare in the mobile segment for Omantel.
The latter has recently signed an agreement with two resellers — Friendi and Renna — which would use Omantel's network and bring in wholesale revenues.
Omantel has recently completed the upgradation of its internet networks to third generation (3G) technology, which will help in improving the quality of the internet services and hence bring more revenues, the GIH report said.
Omantel reported a net income of RO73 million during the first half of 2009, a drop of 2.3 per cent the corresponding period of 2008. The revenues declined by 1.3 per cent to RO198.5 million and the most impacted source of revenue was the international calling segment.
Mobile segment still remained the major source with 66 per cent of total revenue coming in the second quarter.
On the other hand, the operating expenses increased by 1.3 per cent year-on-year during the first half of 2009 to RO119.9 million.
The net profit margin was slightly lower at 36.8 per cent as against 37.2 per cent in 2008, GIH report said.
With respect to other telecom players in the GCC region, GIH said revenues of telecom operators in Kuwait were hurt by regulatory changes as the fees charged by mobile operators to receive calls on their network from fixed-line has been scrapped, resulting in revenue loss for operators.
Changes
This regulatory changes, it said, have far more consequences as there has been a shift in call traffic with increase in fixed-to-mobile calls and declining calls from mobile-to-mobile and mobile-to-fixed.
GIH, however, noted that even though most operators in the GCC region faced pressure in average revenue per user so far in 2009, the high penetration rates and population growth would be the key drivers with increasing competition.
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