Business Bureau, Gulf Today

Etisalat Group announced on Tuesday its consolidated financial statements for the 12 months ending December 31 2020. Aggregate subscriber base reached 154 million, representing year over year increase of 3.6%. Consolidated Net Profit reached Dhs 9.0 billion a 3.8% increase year over year attributed to strong growth in the international operations that outweighed the decline in the UAE operations. Consolidated EBITDA amounted to Dhs 26.4 billion, representing a year over year increase of 0.3% and resulting in EBITDA margin of 51.1%. Proposed dividend payout of 40 fils per share for the second half of 2020, representing a total dividend payout of 80 fils for the full year. Board proposed cancellation of the share buyback program and instead proposed a one-time special dividend of AED 0.40 per share. As a result, the total ‎dividend per share for the full year 2020 is Dhs 1.20 ·

Obaid Humaid Al Tayer, Chairman of Etisalat Group, said: “As we begin our journey into a new digitally empowered future, 2020 was a true testimony to Etisalat Group’s resilience and agility.

“Despite the unprecedented global impact of the COVID 19 pandemic, Etisalat demonstrated robust financial performance, driven by our bold vision to constantly innovate while ensuring that communities we serve remain connected, informed and productive. Across our footprint, we stood for our communities and took immediate steps to protect our teams and customers, support critical verticals, and ensure the uninterrupted delivery of quality services. We engaged heavily with governments and authorities while supporting the community with innovative offerings and free initiatives that assisted students, organisations, and societies as a whole. During the year, revenue and net profit growth were witnessed in our international markets while the domestic market experienced a decline in both due to the pandemic and market maturity.

The telecom industry has proven to be the backbone of the new-norm and a tool of empowerment. We take pride in our response that stood out amongst global peers across our footprint. Etisalat demonstrated strong commitment, swift reactions, and readiness as a result of years of adept planning of business continuity and crisis management scenarios. We have also been in leading positions across several industry rankings. Years of investments in infrastructure and digital capabilities resulted in positioning Etisalat on global standings in ICT readiness and adoption, broadband subscriptions, fiber penetration and mobile coverage.

Etisalat Group is well positioned for the future and we are confident in our ability to maintain our exceptional financial performance. In addition to sustaining our total dividend of AED 0.80 per share, we are pleased to be proposing a special one-time dividend of AED 0.40, bringing the total dividends for the year to AED 1.20 per share representing a dividend payout ratio of 115% and a high dividend yield for year 2020. This is a testament to our commitment of enhancing shareholder value.

I would like to extend my gratitude and appreciation to the UAE leadership, an inspiration and motivation behind every success in our journey. Thanks to our customers for allowing us to be part of their lives, our stakeholders for their continuous trust and Etisalat employees and management team for their efforts and unwavering commitment towards realising our vision of ‘Driving the Digital Future to Empower Societies.”

Eng. Hatem Dowidar, CEO of Etisalat Group, said: “Our journey in 2020 was transformational with an unprecedented pandemic that reshaped humanity, created a new ‘irreversible’ normal, shattered the digital adoption divide, and accelerated the future. For Etisalat Group, it was a year of resilience, agility, social responsibility, and in contrast to many businesses, great results. A moment of truth that obliged us to reflect and transform at group level to affirm our position as a leading world-class telco.

It was indeed a challenging year, however across our operations we remained committed and took necessary steps to support our customers and the communities we serve. Our prime focus was to ensure business continuity and the sustainability of high quality services in a manner that was safe for our employees and customers. This was all possible due to the relentless effort towards realising our vision while investing for growth, sustaining a world-class telecom infrastructure, retaining differentiated assets, platforms, and capabilities integral to building a network for a better future across our operations. As a result we have achieved many historical milestones, from being recognised as the fastest mobile network in the world, to being crowned the strongest brand in Middle East and Africa and the most valuable telecom portfolio brand for a fifth year in a row.