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Dubai: Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company, better known as du, said it is on course to make its first quarterly net profit in 2009.
The company, which launched its services as the country's second telecom services provider one year ago, said in a statement its total revenue last year was about Dh1.53 billion, with the fourth-quarter contributing Dh639.7 million.
Net loss for the year was Dh885.2 million
du had set a target of capturing 30 per cent market share and making a net profit before the end of 2009. "The result of 2007 makes us believe that we can reach our targets a bit faster than planned. We are confident we will start making quarterly profit before the end of 2009," chief executive Osman Sultan told Gulf News.
"We have exceeded 1.5 million mobile customers. We believe this is 30 per cent of the population and represents 19 per cent market share," he said.
The number of cust-omers for landline, broadband and other fixed services was 46,000.
Sultan said du was upbeat about customer growth given the expanding economy and population, but "at some point we will be reaching some kind of saturation."
"Macroeconomic growth is attracting new people to come to live in the country. Second, we will attract more customers from the subscriber base of our competitor. Third, we will target customers who are using different services, not just voice and text, but data and communication devices," Sultan said.
The company said its total capital expenditure last year was Dh1.63 billion.
This year du plans to double its mobile network sites, Sultan said, but did not say how much money it will invest in developing infrastructure.
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