Commenting on the results, Osman Sultan, EITC’s Chief Executive Officer, said:
 
“I am pleased to report for the first nine months of the 2019 year a 3.7% growth in our adjusted (like-for-like1) Net Profit after royalty which reached AED 1.29 billion.  We were able to achieve this result despite several challenges in our market where certain of our business lines which reached maturity are subject to pressure on their top line.  During the first 9 months of the year we were able to report a total revenues of AED 9.4 Billion driven by a healthy increase of 7.5% in our fixed business revenues that absorbed part of the 8.2% decline in mobile revenues.”
 
“Our fixed business continue to register regular growth of the subscriber base[2] which reached 771 thousands, an increase of 1.5%.  We continue to focus our efforts on attracting high value post-paid mobile customers to improve the mix of our mobile subscriber base amounting to 7.74 million subscribers[3], leading to a 2.5% increase in mobile ARPU[4] during the period.”
 
“We continue our transformation efforts to cope with a changing business paradigm and increase the efficiency of the business. Our EBITDA for the first 9 months was at AED 4.22 billion virtually flat on a reported basis and with a contained erosion of 1.7% on a like-for-like basis reflecting efficiency efforts all over the organisation to absorb an important part of the pressure on the Revenues.  As a part of our operational improvements we have made significant progress during the quarter to advance our digital strategy, while also strengthening our customer proposition.”
 
“We have also accelerated in Q3 2019 the deployment of our network and in particular our 5G deployment.  Our Capex for the first 9 month-period increased by 82% compared to same period last year to reach AED 799 million almost doubling the capital intensity of the business.  These continuous investments confirm our commitment to provide our customers with the latest technologies and products and our regular efforts towards improving customer experience.”