Oman Telecommunications Company SAOG ($OTEL)

All right. I think we are ready to begin. First, thank you all for joining us as we present Omantel's performance for the full year ended 31st December 2025. Today, we have with us Mr. Ghassan Al Hashar, our CFO. And we're also joined by our senior management team of Finance. We're having today on the call, Mr. Amal Al Ojaily, General Manager, Strategic Finance; and Mr. Wahbi Al-Riyami, General Manager Treasury; and Mr. Sudhakar, General Manager, Financial Control. As usual, today's presentation and during this call, we might make forward-looking statements. These are predictions and projections of our other statements about future events based on our current expectations and assumptions and are subject to risks and uncertainty. And for the time limitations and constraints, we would like to invite the analysts to limit themselves to one question followed by a follow-up question to make sure everyone gets to participate in today's call. And now I would like to invite Mr. Ghassan Al Hashar, the CFO, to welcome -- to have the welcoming note and start the presentation.

Thank you, Aisha, for the introduction. Good afternoon, and welcome, everyone, to Omantel's Investors Call for the year 2025. We appreciate the continued interest from our investors and the analyst community as we walk you through our year-end 2025 financial performance and the key developments that shaped in the year. To begin, from the results, of course, as the title states it clearly, Omantel delivered double-digit growth in revenue, strengthening core telco, while scaling into techco platforms. In this, the group net profit after tax has increased to OMR 371 million compared to OMR 197.7 million in 2024, representing an increase of 87.7%. The increase is primarily attributed to a positive EBITDA performance across all operations. Net profit attributable to shareholders of the company for the period stands at OMR 88 million compared to a restated OMR 54.2 million net profit in 2024, with an increase of 63.1%. An important point on comparability, we clearly stated in the slides, all 2025 -- the financial year figures are compared to the restated prior year of 2024 results following, of course, the application of IAS 29. This is an important point to note by all stakeholders and readers of our financials who are comparing like-for-like on the basis presented. In domestic operations, revenue increased to OMR 676 million, an increase of 8.6%. The increase was mainly driven by higher telco revenues of about -- around OMR 36.7 million. Domestic EBITDA for the year stood at OMR 180 million. Normalized domestic net profit after non-controlling interest for the year 2025 stood at OMR 65.2 million. It's worth highlighting that during the year and as disclosed in the prior periods, the year 2025, Zain declared additional interim dividends of OMR 29.8 million in November, relating to the final dividend payable in March 2026. Now including this additional dividend, the domestic profit for the year stands at OMR 95.4 million. On key developments affecting the sector and the wider portfolio environment, Aisha, if we can move to the next slide, please. As you have seen, Omantel delivered a year-end performance, and Aisha will highlight most of this in the coming slides, mainly supported by the growth coming from ICT and of course, a resilient core. When we move to Zain Group, of course, reported exceptional performance led by growth in Iraq and recovery in Sudan. This is a relevant context given the regional dynamics and the way these markets contributed to results during 2025. Moving ahead, of course, one important development, which Omantel, of course, disclosed to the market in the prior period was TRA reduction in the mobile services royalty rate to 10% from 12%, which is a material regulatory shift for the market. Additionally, of course, the IAS 29 applied to Sudan operations. This is described in the coming slides, resulting in a broadly neutral equity impact when it comes to Omantel. Finally, on credit strength and external validation of our financial position, it will be also highlighted in the presentation that Fitch upgraded Omantel rating to BBB- with a Stable outlook, marking the achievement of investment-grade status. This milestone reflects the progress made on strengthening the balance sheet and sustaining prudent financial management aligned to long-term value creation. From here, I will leave it to Aisha to walk us through the coming slides, and we can complete the Q&A session after concluding the presentation. Aisha, please, you may proceed.

Thank you very much, Ghassan, on the -- walking us on the key highlights of the year for Omantel. Now moving to the second slide, which we usually start giving on -- before we get into the details of the financial performance. Oman offers a resilient and attractive operating environment driven by steady population growth that we have witnessed year-on-year, an increase of 2%. And also arising tourism and healthy GDP per capita for the tourism, the increase year-on-year has been seen of 1.9% growth, resulting to 3.9 million tourism visitors for 2025. And for the debt to GDP ratio, we have seen the successful story for Oman when it comes to servicing its debt. We've seen the levels of debt to GDP ratio has significantly decreased to the levels we are seeing today, around 35.7%. And on the supportive regulatory environment, we have also seen an increase in the last 3 years in SME growth of 24% as well, one of the key supportive and regulatory environment developments that we have seen in 2025, which is the royalty rate reduction from 12% to 10% on royalty rate on the mobile services. Now the country's highly tech-savvy population marked by near universal smartphone usage and strong broadband penetration and fast-growing data consumption continues to drive the demand for advanced digital services. On this positive backdrop is further reinforced by our improved national credit outlook across all major credit agencies, including Moody's and Fitch Ratings and S&P Global, which was -- Fitch Rating was the recent one with the upgrade. Together, these fundamentals position Oman for a long-term digital growth and create a strong platform for Omantel's strategic investments. Now moving to the structure of Omantel Group that will help us move forward in our journey to evolve from a telecom company into a techco group. Today, Omantel stands as one of the region's most integrated telecom and technology groups, combining both a strong domestic leadership with a high-growth digital capabilities and strategic international footprint. At the core, Omantel maintains and continues to maintain its position as Oman's leading telecom operator across retail and wholesale with almost 3.6 million subscribers, with a solid fixed broadband subscriber market share of 55% and also a leadership in the mobile market, both the subscriber and revenue market share. On the subscriber market share, it's almost 42% (sic) [ 40.2%. ] Now through ZOI, Omantel efficiently manages the wholesale business of both Omantel and Zain, reinforcing its scale advantage, becoming the Middle East top connected operator supported by more than 20 subsea cables and seven landing stations and two data center assets that position the group as a regional hub. Now beyond connectivity, the group is rapidly expanding in ICT and in Emerging Tech. And for 2025, we have recorded a double-digit growth in revenue in the ICT and Emerging Tech amounting of almost 56.7% revenue growth year-on-year. The ICT portfolio has officially been unified and announced in early 2026 under the umbrella of Otech, which includes Oman DataPark and Tadoom, and also in partnership with Infoline is now fully matured, supported by currently four data centers and more than 800 connected IoT devices. On the side, we have also been developing our digital portfolio to capture the growing demand with the recent launch of OMPAY and XHAWI marketplace. We are also well positioned to monetize our CEP base in the future, which has now reached 1.4 million active subscribers. This expanding ecosystem positions Omantel to unlock new revenue streams through cross-selling, deeper customer insights and value-added digital service built around our customer experience platform base. Now complementing these businesses, Omantel owns 21.9% strategic stake in Zain Group, one of the region's largest operators with a 50 million customers across seven markets. Zain is a very strategic element in our evolution. We are positioning Zain as a partner of growth and leveraging their seven markets footprint with a 50 million subscriber as well as leveraging Zain's expertise around their growth vertical sector -- sorry, such as ZainTECH, ZainCash and TASC Towers as well. When it comes to our future synergies and collaboration with our own growth verticals in ICT and Emerging Tech as well. Now moving to our strategy, building on our strong foundation and diversified growth engines, Omantel now is stepping confidently into the next phase of its strategic journey, which is Portal to the Future. This direction strengthens everything we have already set in motion and extends our ambitions beyond the traditional telecom. We continue our role as enabler of sustainable Oman and supporting the national transition and embedding our sustainability across all of our operations. This reinforce our long-term commitment to responsible growth. In parallel, we are expanding as an innovation orchestrator, scaling next-generation capabilities powered by emerging technologies and through strategic partnerships and advanced platforms. We are widening our impact and positioning Omantel at the center of Oman digital ecosystem. Our strategy also advances our ambition to become a regional leader in AI with the launch of the AI Center of Excellence and AI Studio, and stronger governance and focused upskilling. We are preparing the organization to deploy AI at scale by building a unified data mesh and developing an Arabic large language model use cases. We aim to elevate our customer experience and boost our ARPU and strengthen our retention and improve our NPS. Finally, we are shaping the ecosystem of the future, which is immersive digital content, entertainment and advanced services supported by a new regional research and development center that will anchor innovation for the years to come. Now moving to the financial updates. As mentioned by Mr. Ghassan, the group has shown a strong revenue growth, both supported by our domestic performance and from Zain group across all of its Opcos. As we can see on the left, our subscriber has increased by 4.4%, (sic) [ 4.4 million, ] largely due to the strong growth of Zain subscribers and Zain Sudan after the network restorations. And as well, if we also look at the EBITDA has also been improved, seen a growth driven by the domestic operation and in Zain Group, mostly also driven from Sudan, KSA, and Iraq with stable margins. Finally, Zain group contribution to the group net profit has notably increased year-on-year by OMR 34.3 million. Now moving to the domestic business. Omantel has delivered a healthy operational and financial performance during 2025. And as mentioned earlier by the CFO, reflecting continued momentum in both Core Telecom and Emerging Technology segments, we have also witnessed a total subscriber growth by 6.2%, supported by both mobility and fixed broadband. Now looking at the domestic revenue, which increased by 8.6% year-on-year to OMR 676 million, mainly driven by the uplift in core telco by OMR 37 million and ICT and Emerging Tech by OMR 16.9 million. The increase in Emerging Tech revenue, this really demonstrates the growing traction of our digital and ICT portfolio in the local market. Now looking at the EBITDA, which is maintained around OMR 180 million, supported by both better gross margins and better enterprise collections. Lastly, looking at the net income, which has declined by 6.5% year-on-year, reaching to OMR 65.3 million, which is primarily due to the increase in depreciation, which reflects our ongoing investments in network modernization and digital capability strengthening for the long-term foundation of our -- both domestic and regional business. Now to zoom on Omantel domestic revenue, you can see very clearly that our core telecom revenue, which includes mobile, the fixed device and wholesale, have increased by almost OMR 37 million, with the growth mainly coming from fixed device and wholesale components. While mobile remains a stable business, despite the competition in the market with the other two operators. We are maintaining our position in our core telecom while scaling our ICT revenue, where you can see the increase year-on-year has witnessed almost an increase of OMR 16.9 million, with growth mainly coming from Infrastructure-as-a-Service, Oracle Cloud and Smart Solutions. Now moving to Omantel Domestic gross profit and EBITDA. You can see Omantel Domestic profitability continued to improve during 2025, supported by stronger gross margins across both core telecom and ICT portfolio. Gross profit increased 5% year-on-year to reach OMR 353.4 million, with margin improvements driven both primarily by core telecom of almost OMR 14.9 million and also contribution from the ICT and Emerging Tech also saw a gross profit increase of OMR 4.8 million, supported by, again, higher demand for the Cloud services, Colocations and Smart Solutions, reflecting our scaling of our digital businesses. On the EBITDA, which is maintained year-on-year by almost to OMR 180.3 million, core telecom rose by 1.3 million, benefiting from the stronger gross profit, which this was partially offset by the higher operating expenses mainly linked to increase in IT costs as the company continues to invest in digital capabilities and infrastructure modernization. Now looking at the core telecom financials, which I believe we've a little bit touched upon on the previous slide. So we will go through it as well here. The core telecom financial revenue year-on-year showed an increase of 6% and gross profit increased by 5% year-on-year, and EBITDA has increased by 1% year-on-year. We maintained our market leadership in a very highly competitive market. And growth in postpaid revenue was slightly offset by the decrease in prepaid revenue, while fixed revenue growth was mainly driven by an increase in fixed broadband revenue, which almost has increased year-on-year by 8.7% yearly. Now looking at the core telecom operating stats, mainly covering the subscribers and ARPU. We can see that the mobile subscriber base increased mainly due to the M2M base alongside our postpaid subscriber base, driven by the successful migration of prepaid subscribers from prepaid to postpaid. Also the postpaid mobile ARPU has showed a marginal increase, sustaining a competitive position and net subscriber growth despite the intensified price-led market dynamics supported by strong retention and successful upselling. Now looking at the fixed broadband subscribers and the ARPU also increased, mainly driven by the customer upgrades to higher value plans and we believe that given the penetration level, there is still room to grow the fixed broadband revenues. Now moving to the ICT and Emerging Tech. On the domestic side, we can see that the revenue has increased mainly driven, again, OMR 9.7 million in cloud and hosting solutions and OMR 6.7 million growth through the smart solutions. While gross margin varies across business segments, the margin increase is supported by growth from the Colocation and Smart Solutions. And the EBITDA decline is mainly on account of a negative EBITDA from fintech and marketplace entities, which are at the very beginning of their launch phase. And going forward, as we mentioned earlier, the digital engagement on our current telco base will support our growth in revenue from fintech and marketplace -- sorry, on fintech and marketplace, which today accounts out of our total subscribers -- mobility subscribers, the level of activity is around 55%. On the CapEx, this is just a snapshot to give you an overview of our CapEx. Our CapEx for 2025 has reached around OMR 129.3 million, which almost represents a growth of 28%, with the CapEx to revenue at almost 19%. The majority invested in network infra to expand coverage and boost capacity followed by a digital transformation and innovation to enhance customer experience and drive operational efficiency. Okay. Now moving to the cash flow slide. We have a stable cash flow supporting ongoing investments. Our operating cash flow has increased by 3%, while our investing cash flow has decreased by 33%. Our free cash flow includes an additional interim dividend of OMR 29.8 million from Zain Group in November 2025, paid in lieu of final dividend. Excluding the additional dividend, the free cash flow stands at OMR 87 million compared to OMR 85.1 million. Of course, the cash flow from operation has increased on account of a stable EBITDA, which also was supported by the increase in collection of prior year enterprise receivables. Lastly, on the balance sheet, this is also just a snapshot of where we stand today in terms of the gross debt compositions and repayments, including interest, bank borrowings and bonds. Leverage stands at 3.17x, excludes the effect of adding interim dividend from Zain Group, which is OMR 29.8 million. Including the leverage -- including this in the leverage, it will drop to 2.67x. On our net debt stands at OMR 672 million, which is broadly at the same level as last year. And the gross debt slightly has decreased on account of repayment of the RCF. And this, I believe, brings us to the end of our presentation. And I would like to welcome all of the analysts to participate if there is any questions, and the management will be here to support and answer your questions. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Aisha, for covering this. I believe there is one question from Nick here posted. It says, with the uncertainty in the region, it is clear that residents may leave temporarily or perhaps some permanently. Dubai and Qatar are clearly more likely to be affected. What do you assume in terms of Oman? And have you discussed with Zain management the effect on its business and potential drop in activity? Thank you, Nick. Yes, it is clear that we are seeing uncertainty. However, I believe the focus now at this stage is to ensure that we have robust business continuity and disaster recovery plans. Those were at our top priority at this stage. And when it comes to other priorities, of course, we are looking at the supply chain disruptions. That's also being very well taken care of and planned. Now when it comes to the dimension you highlighted in your question and in terms to commercial and activity and residents traveling, I just wanted to highlight that in Oman, we are seeing the traffic coming more to the country. We are seeing more inbound roaming coming in the past few days. And I believe it is still early now. We are just -- we have just finished the 9th day, moving to the 10th day since this conflict started. So we are monitoring it carefully and in certainly close collaboration with our colleagues and Zain Group and monitoring other operations across the region. And if there are any developments, we will be certainly disclosing those to the market in due course. Again, we are open for any questions. Please use the raise hand option, and we'll give you the chance to ask any questions.

Thank you very much, Ghassan. I think I'm also seeing a question in the chat box -- sorry, in the chat box. Given the increasing investments required for 5G monetization, 6G development and AI-driven infrastructure like data centers, how does the company plan to manage its cost to profit ratio moving forward? I believe Sudhakar, if you may help us answering the question.

Thank you, Aisha. See, I think you have looked at our CapEx numbers. This year, the capitalization has been closer to that OMR 126-kind of million mark, which is around 19%. The bulk of this investment has gone in rolling out 5G and upgrading our existing 4G sites. Now you've also seen our mobility revenues, while most of the operators in the region also had a challenge in terms of monetizing on the mobility side, but when it comes to the fixed broadband, Omantel has been pretty successful in monetizing on the fixed wireless revenues, which has been a good support to our 5G business case. Now I think -- and that's where our major growth has come in the past couple of years and including this year. So 5G, in terms of monetization, has been broadly a story on the fixed side, while also supporting the huge growth in terms of mobile broadband, which Omantel, as a leader in the market, has been able to support that kind of growth, which is why our mobility revenues has been pretty stable. Now coming to your 6G development, I think this is still at a very, I would say, still at an early stage. So the trials are going on and all that. This is something which Omantel has been looking at, but that's for a later stage. So probably from a CapEx perspective on the network side, a bulk of the investment has been spent. Probably this year also, we might be looking at a CapEx to revenue ratio of closer to around 16% to 17%. Now coming to AI-driven infrastructure. This is something which the group is looking at probably, through our subsidiaries. You have seen our Otech brand being launched recently. So Otech under its umbrella has got already currently some investments in data centers. There are some data centers which are already planned. So that should give a support in terms of infrastructure to support the AI use cases. In addition to that, through our investment vehicle, ZOI also, which is also looking at some of the opportunities around data centers, which should also support the AI infrastructure use cases. So going forward, probably on the data centers, I think the growth is primarily going to come from Otech and ZOI.

In continuation with Sudhakar's point, and when we talk about the data center, of course, you are all aware that data center as a business, it's capital intensive. But in Omantel, we still hold on to our vision and plans where we continue to sort of aim to be asset-light. And you have seen that towards the -- all the initiatives that were there in the past in monetizing our infrastructure when it comes to selling our towers and so on. So we will have to strike that balance to ensure that we, of course, maintain and maximize value to our shareholders wherever possible.

Thank you very much, Sudhakar and Ghassan. Moving now to Dan. Dan? Maybe we can go to [ Sergey. ] I'll unmute you and you can ask your question. And we can come back to Dan.

I just had two quick questions with regards to ZOI and marketplace XHAWI. So the question number one, do you actually -- does actually ZOI consolidates the cable assets of Omantel, meaning the 20 subsea cables that Omantel has or it has a separate asset base? And the second question with regards to ZOI is it just an operational partnership between XHAWI and Omantel or Omantel has acquired a stake in a local marketplace, and if it is the case, what is your development plan with regards to the marketplace?

Thank you very much, [ Sergey. ] I think Sudhakar, if you can support us with answering the questions.

So your first question was on the ZOI. In terms of the ownership of the subsea cable assets, the investment which was done by Omantel in the past in terms of the subsea cables, which are landing in Oman, that continues to remain with Omantel and that drives the revenue growth in Omantel. Now having said that, when ZOI was formed as a kind of a joint venture between Omantel and Zain Group, the whole thought process is that any future investments in subsea cable systems will be done through ZOI, okay? So in terms of any investment in subsea cable assets going forward, that will go through ZOI, while existing assets continue to be owned by the respective groups, but any upgrades on the existing cable systems will continue to be done by Omantel. I hope that answer was clear to you. Coming to your next question on XHAWI. XHAWI, this is not a case where we have acquired a stake in a local marketplace. This is a kind of a greenfield venture where Omantel has started this marketplace venture. The key is what Aisha mentioned, if you look at the slide on the digital active base, see, we are sitting on a pretty significant mobile base. The idea is to extend it to the next stage where we can monetize beyond our core mobility revenues. So with that idea, this marketplace platform was ventured into. So I think the bulk of the investment in terms of building a platform is already behind us. That's where some of the investments have gone into when you look at the CapEx part of it. We believe Oman, in terms of the number of players who are currently there in the market, we still believe that there is a good opportunity when it comes to e-commerce. So we believe this is also going to be one of the driver of the growth going forward, particularly with the base, which we have compared to any other player. Our acquisition costs are quite less compared to any other player.

Thank you very much, Sudhakar. [ Sergey, ] I hope that is -- yes. I'm going back to Dan if -- allow your mic. I hope that you don't have any technical issues, and you can ask your question.

Sorry about that. Yes, remaining on ZOI, both yourselves and Zain have highlighted the very significant growth of that business. Yes, can you discuss a little bit about what we should expect for that business in terms of growth over the course of the coming year and so on? And whether that growth is funded and how that growth is funded, but also how the situation, I guess, in the Middle East might influence network rollout plans and net growth profile.

So thank you very much, Dan. I think Sudhakar, you can answer the question.

So extending that answer which I've given previously on ZOI. See, ZOI is into this business where they're managing the wholesale business of all the Opcos of Omantel and the Zain Group, of course. In addition to that, going forward, the investment in subsea cables or even the terrestrial network expansion, be it connecting Oman to the rest of the Opcos of Zain Group when it comes to terrestrial network expansion or even the data centers, which I was talking about earlier, this is something which ZOI would be focusing on. Now when it comes to the question of funding, the management is looking at all the options on the table. Zain Group was also highlighted it in the call that when it comes to funding, we are looking at a mix of both debt and equity. So in terms of our share in ZOI, it is around 26%; and Zain Group owns around 74%. So we are looking at a mix of both debt and equity to fund the investments in ZOI going forward.

Thank you both. Thank you, Sudhakar. Thank you, Dan. I have a question from the chat box. The CapEx to revenue ratio in 2025 is higher than history years. Any special reasons for this higher ratio? And will this 19% ratio remain stable in the future? I believe Sudhakar a little bit has answered this question, but maybe Sudhakar, you may answer this question again for Al-Hussain Al-Jabri.

Yes. I think for 2025, I think a major part of it has gone -- of this investment has gone in mainly two areas. One, the network upgrade and 5G rollout, which we mentioned, close to around OMR 40 million to OMR 45 million of that investment is in the network upgrade. And the other major area where investment has gone to. And two is relating to the digital projects. On the digital part, which is mainly our mobile app, I think close to around OMR 23 million was invested in the mobile app. Now that is not only to support our core telco operations, but also to lay down the platform to support our fintech and to onboard some of the operators where we want to act as an aggregator to enhance our revenue streams. So we are building CEP, mainly not only to cater to core telco but to expand our revenue streams. So that's where our major portion of the CapEx investment has gone into.

Thank you very much, Sudhakar. I don't see any further hands or questions in the chat box. So please, if you have. Okay. We have a question from one of the analysts. Could you please elaborate on the impact of IAS 29 on previous year numbers and 2025? Sudhakar?

Yes. On IAS 29, like Ghassan mentioned, the restatement had to be done from the day we acquired the stake in Zain Group, which was 2017. Zain Group applied this from year 2015. So once we restated our numbers, when it comes to the overall equity, the impact is kind of neutral. But if we break down the equity components further, when it comes to retained earnings, it had a cumulative impact up to December '24, a negative impact of close to OMR 197 million on our retained earnings has a negative impact. But we had an offsetting impact on the foreign currency translation reserve, which is close to around OMR 196 million, which is why we say that the equity impact is neutral. The simple economic logic for this is that because of CPI changes, because of the increase in the price index, the value in terms of local currency has gone down, which historically, group when consolidating Sudan operations, we used to account all those losses in the foreign currency translation result. So with the application of IAS 29, all these currency losses, to a great extent, gets reflected now as part of your profits. So there was a shift from foreign currency translation losses through retained earnings, which is where the negative impact has come in. Now coming to FY '24, in terms of its impact on group numbers, which is after adjusting the minority share in Zain Group, the previous reported numbers was -- of net profit was close to OMR 78 million. Now that went down to OMR 54 million, which is the IAS 29 impact of close to OMR 24 million. So that's the negative impact when it comes to FY '24. But cumulatively, it's a OMR 197 million impact when you take it from 2017 all the way to '24. Now coming to 2025, it had a positive impact, IAS 29 had a positive impact of close to -- in terms of rial Omani, we are talking about close to OMR 20 million. Now the reason for having a positive impact in 2025, whereas there was a negative impact in 2024 was mainly because of the impairment losses on assets, which were all recorded in 2024 and for periods prior to that.

Thank you very much, Sudhakar. I hope this answers the question, [ Shaoor. ] Moving to -- sorry if I'm not pronouncing your name correctly, [ Kaushik. ]

Just a couple of questions. First is that, see, you have seen that the mobile -- revenue from mobile has been flattish in the past 2, 3 years, whereas mobile subscriber growth has been pretty strong in the current year, but that doesn't seem to be reflecting in revenue. So how do we see going forward and for the next couple of years? Do we see only a flattish performance or can we see some growth? Second is, I just want to understand if there has been any impact on your performance and the group performance due to the current conflict. I mean, have we stopped any operation? Or has there been any impact on the operation, both in terms of domestic as well as the wider group? Also just one more clarification. Can you just give us the postpaid numbers, including M2M that is subscribers, that will be great.

Sorry, [ Kaushik. ] Your last request. I didn't get -- what are you asking for?

The last one was the postpaid subscriber numbers, including M2M for '24 and '25. If you can just share that, that will be great.

Maybe I'll just start with the second question on the impact on the group or domestic operations as a result of the recent developments. As I highlighted earlier, answering the question at the beginning of the call. I believe so far, there has been a sort of no business interruptions or damages. But if there is anything, of course, we will disclose that depending on the level of materiality. But as I said, our top priority at this stage is to focus on having a robust business continuity, implementation of our plans and disaster recovery. So that's our top priority at this stage. Moving to the next point. When it comes to the mobile revenue being flat, I'm sure you are very well aware, and you are seeing the competition in the market. Now when it comes to the postpaid and the growth we are witnessing, that demonstrates clearly our commercial team's efforts in maintaining the market share that they are having despite the current market competition. When it comes to the subscribers levels who are considered to be high, as we are showing in the slide, of course, the machine-to-machine contributed actually more towards this growth. But also, if you are seeing, again, it went up excluding the machine-to-machine from 754 to 769. We are still seeing the competition. The market dynamic landscape is being challenging. However, in Omantel, we believe that price war is not a game we want to enter. We are completing more in value. And you are seeing that demonstrated and more and more verticals adding to the pure telco services that we have like what we mentioned, the customer experience platform, the marketplace and the fintech, among other, of course, areas that are -- or solutions we are providing to our consumers to enhance the loyalty and stickiness moving forward. When it comes to the future, I believe you have seen the trend for quite some time now. And since the third operator entered the market, yes, there have been some changes in the market shares with other operators. But Omantel has been continuing -- continuously showing steady growth in the revenue side.

Thank you very much, Ghassan. And just to answer your questions, the M2M subscribers, I'll just post it in the chat box. And we -- if you can just send me an e-mail, we can share with you the M2M subscribers as well in details alongside with the postpaid revenue. Another question from [ Shaoor. ] EBITDA from ICT suffered in 2025. When should we expect the negative contribution from fintech and marketplace to normalize? Sudhakar, maybe you would like to take this question.

Yes. So on the ICT and fintech, first, let's separate the ICT bit of it, mainly the Otech part. Otech part, which includes our Oman DataPark and Tadoom. So on this, on the gross margin front, we have performed quite well, which is reflected in the growth in revenues, which we have. So when it comes to EBITDA, the same performance is not reflected over there. One, because now we are going through kind of a transformation program where we are investing in some of the capabilities in particularly, in cybersecurity, system integration and, of course, an expansion of the data center. So as part of this transformation program, we have incurred certain costs, which is kind of reflecting in the Otech profitability. These are, I would say, kind of a onetime cost, which we have incurred. And some of these also would be recurring costs going forward. But a big chunk of the EBITDA impact of Otech has come from certain onetime costs, mainly relating to transformation program. Now when it comes to marketplace and fintech, and your question on when it would normalize. I think things are, I would say, is still at an early stage. I think in terms of building the platform, marketplace, we have already done that. In terms of case on how we monetize in terms of the cycle, which it takes for any e-commerce player to turn into profitability, we are talking about a cycle of at least a minimum of 3 years. So EBITDA positive, probably a little bit faster depending upon how fast we monetize that. But we believe at least 3 years would be the time it would take for marketplace to churn profits. When it comes to fintech. Fintech, quite a few initiatives are there. Currently, OMPAY, which is our platform has got payment gateway licenses. Based on that, they have onboarded quite a few merchants, and they're serving quite a bit significant transaction volume. But going forward, in terms of opportunities, they're looking at quite a few opportunities to expand into the fintech space, which would require investments. And at the same time, in terms of revenue growth, that is going to be significant. But as any fintech player in the regional market, what you have witnessed, even that would take close to 2 to 3 years to stabilize. But we believe there is a significant opportunity which exists in this space. In terms of profitability, that's going to take a bit of time.

Thank you very much, Sudhakar. We have a few minutes left. Any additional questions, please, you may post your questions in the chat box or you can use the raise hand facility. We have a question from Mirza. Thank you for the presentation. Excluding the additional dividend, free cash flow in 2025 near same with 2024. Any action to improve the free cash flow by reduce investing cash flow? Any plan to do a new financing activity in 2026? Maybe Sudhakar or Wahbi can answer this question?

Yes, I'll take the first one, yes, and on financing, I'll ask Wahbi also to chip in. On the cash flow from operations, I think you've seen there was a pretty good improvement in terms of ensuring that our working capital is efficiently managed. I think this year, we see the effects of that in terms of collection of a lot of prior year receivables. And then this is something, which we will continue to do in 2026 also in terms of having a receivable level, which is appropriate for this size of the business. Now another thing on the -- if you exclude the additional dividend, when it comes to the CapEx cash outflow, I think that's something which will be controlled going forward. But I think the effects of that on the cash flow is something which you would see partly in the second half of 2026 and to a great extent, in 2027. So I think free cash flow, when it comes to the CapEx cash outflow, that is bound to see some improvement starting 2027 for the core telco part. Wahbi on the financing?

Yes, Sudhakar. So just to clarify that there's no current immediate requirements for any financing or refinancing activities going on in the scale that we require to go to the market to raise any funding. However, there are some opportunities that have come up with the M&A team. And so those opportunities have been discussed, analyzed, and for any requirements, we'll definitely be looking at investing from the internal cash. But major financing activities, short answer is no. However, we do have the 2028 bonds coming up, and then we'll look into ways of refinancing those right from now and then we'll be working towards an idea of how to refinance those by '28.

Thank you very much, Wahbi and Sudhakar. I think this brings us to the end of our session today for the year-end results discussion. Thank you to all the analysts and investors for joining us, and thank you to the management for attending and answering all the questions. And of course, our e-mail details are as shown in the slide, and we have also our website and investor app for additional information. And I would hand over to -- sorry, to Ghassan Al Hashar to end the call with any additional thoughts on the business performance for 2025.

Thank you very much. I believe we've covered most of the highlights for 2025. And we are already approaching the end of Q1. So hopefully, we'll catch up again, [Foreign Language] towards -- around end of April or early May to discuss Q3. So wishing you all the best and hoping to see you once again in the coming quarter for another update. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, everyone, for joining us.