Ooredoo Q.P.S.C. (ORDS) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

February 21, 2023

Qatar Stock Exchange QA Communication Services Diversified Telecommunication Services earnings 44 min

Earnings Call Speaker Segments

Andreas Goldau

executive
#1

[Foreign Language] Welcome to Ooredoo's 2022 investor call. My name is Andreas Goldau, and I'm in charge of Investor Relations. Today I'm joined today by Aziz Aluthman Fakhroo, Managing Director and CEO of Ooredoo Group. Furthermore, we are joined by Abdulla Al Zaman, our Group CFO; Rene Werner, our Chief Strategy Officer; Sheikh Mohammed Al Thani, Deputy CEO of Ooredoo Group; and Eyas Assaf, Deputy CFO. Then we have a new member to the group. He has been a veteran to Ooredoo and to Ooredoo Qatar, but it's the first time to welcome Sheikh Ali Jabor Al Thani to the investor call. He has been taking over his new role as CEO of Ooredoo Qatar last month. The presentation begins, as always, with the key financial highlights and consolidated results presented by Aziz, our Group CEO. Then Abdulla, our Group CFO, is covering the opco sections. Do type your questions in the Q&A section of the Zoom webinar at any time. We'll keep the presentation very brief to allow ample time for your questions. The recording of the session has started now, so by staying in this call, you automatically consent to being recorded. And I would also highlight the usual disclaimer on Slide #2. So that's the introduction, and I hand over to Aziz.

Aziz Ahmad Fakhroo

executive
#2

Good morning or good afternoon, and I'm happy to present to you the Q4 results, and more importantly, 2022's full year results. As every time before, we'll walk you through different parts of our core strategy from value-focused portfolio, which is optimizing our asset base; the Braveheart 2.0, strengthening the core, which was driving profitability through better OpEx and CapEx management; smart telco, increasing the revenue streams from our existing core base of customers -- of course, people are core assets in the company; and customer experience, which has been a priority for us to grow our customer base. As you remember last year, at this time of the year, we announced the merger of Indosat with CK Hutchison operation in Indonesia. This marks the first year of the integration. We're very happy to report that we're going ahead of plan, and this merger is bringing higher-than-expected returns as of today. Our revenue is at $3.1 billion, our EBITDA is at $1.3 billion, and we're also announcing a net profit of $96 million. Focusing for the beginning of next year, we'll focus now on finalizing the network integration, expanding our network coverage and growing our customer base and ARPU. We've also achieved during this period the launch in Q3 of FTTH. We've announced a data center JV in Indonesia in Q2, and we've been expanding our partnership, especially with Google to grow our adjacency businesses. As mentioned previously, we've been going ahead of schedule in terms of network integration. We've actually managed to activate over 31,000 sites, and the shutting down is in progress. We're growing also our customer base. We've just passed the landmark subscriber base of 100 million subscribers with 102 million subscribers. This puts us on track of exceeding our expected targets, which was, as I may remind you, $300 million to $400 million of annualized pretax synergies between year 3 and 5. Today, we're confident that we'll probably reach the $400 million mark closer to year 3 than year 5. So we're very happy with the progress, which is going ahead of schedule for this merger. I'm happy to announce that we're continuing the strong performance at the back of 2021 with 2022 results. As you will see, we've increased our revenue by 4%, taking our revenues to QAR 22.7 billion. Our EBITDA stands at QAR 9.1 billion with an EBITDA margin of 40%. This has allowed us also to achieve a net -- normalized net profit of QAR 2.8 billion compared to QAR 2.2 billion in 2021. Just as a remark, this is the highest profitability for Ooredoo since 2013. We've also achieved significant milestones, as we mentioned, the integration which is ahead of schedule in Indonesia. We've also delivered a seamless network experience for the World Cup that took place in Qatar. And as you will see, we've also been upgraded by S&P to A/A-1. I'm pleased to announce that the Board has recommended a dividend of QAR 0.43 compared to QAR 0.30 last year. This is an increase of 43% for the dividend of the year. As mentioned, our normalized proforma revenue is up by 4% to QAR 22.7 billion. A note: in all local currency our revenue is up in every single OpCos. Our EBITDA is down by 2% to QAR 9.1 billion. This is mainly driven by inflation in energy costs across some of our OpCos and also exceptional expenses due to the World Cup as well as the OneOoredoo program. I'll touch on this later in the slide. Our EBITDA margin stands at 40%. And our CapEx intensity is at the lower end of our guidance of 12%, coming down from 14% in the previous year. Free cash flows are up by 3% to QAR 6.4 billion and our net profit, as mentioned, is up 27%, a record to QAR 2.8 billion. Our net debt to EBITDA is at 1.1x and our customer base now stands at 56 million subscribers excluding Indonesia and 158 million subscribers including Indonesia. Just for reference, this is a slide with the key highlights versus last year's reported numbers. I won't spend much time on it as this integrated Indonesia as a subsidiary. And as you know, as of today, we account for it as a joint venture. For Q4, we see similar performance as for the full year. Revenue is up by 3% at QAR 5.8 billion. EBITDA down by 2% to QAR 2.3 billion. EBITDA margin at 39%. CapEx intensity at 20% and free cash flows up by 5% at QAR 1.1 billion. Our net profit stood for the last quarter at QAR 722 million. Net debt-to-EBITDA still remains at 1.1x, and our customer base 56 million. Same comment: this is a comparison to last year, which included Indonesia as a subsidiary. This is just for your reference. With the revenue bridge, what you will notice is that we have strong growth in Qatar, Iraq, Kuwait and the Maldives as well as in Palestine. In Algeria, Myanmar and Tunisia, we actually grew in local currency but were affected by the depreciation of currency. The only market where we had the slight drop in revenue is Oman, and this is mainly due to the entrance of Vodafone as a service player into the market. This has taken the total group's revenue from QAR 21.9 billion to QAR 22.7 billion for the full year. That's a 4% growth. Here on the EBITDA bridge, what you'll notice is similarly to the revenue, the core markets which have outperformed are Qatar, Tunisia, Kuwait, Maldives and Iraq. Our proforma EBITDA has dropped by 2%. What you've noticed -- what you will notice is Qatar, Tunisia, Kuwait and Maldives as well as Iraq performed very strongly. Algeria and Myanmar have been impacted by foreign currency and Oman by the entrance of Vodafone. Also, the drop in EBITDA is justified by a few exceptional events. One was the increase in staff cost due to the Braveheart program, which was a transformation project, which has led to the increase in free cash flow over the last 2 years; as well as the current integration of OneOoredoo, which is a uniform back-end platform for HR, procurement and financial, across all our [ Cos ] under SAP. As previously stated, our normalized profit is up 27% from last year from QAR 2.2 billion to QAR 2.8 billion. This is a record. It's our best net profit since 2013. A big part of the outperformance in net profit is coming from the lower -- from the decrease in amortization and depreciation, thanks to our impairment of Myanmar and our rationalization of our asset base. This jump in net profit is supported by lower depreciation and lower finance costs. Here, you'll see the normalization adjustment that we've done for our net profit, FX and impairments and the one-off proceeds for the data center sale. Similarly, for Q4 of the year, our net profit is up by 12% from QAR 643 million to QAR 722 million. Once again, normalization includes FX and impairment. In terms of CapEx expenditure, what you'll notice is we're coming slightly below the lower end of our guidance at QAR 2.7 billion versus a guidance of QAR 2.75 billion for the year 2022. That takes our CapEx intensity from 14% to 12%. Big reduction were in Myanmar, where we've kept CapEx to a bare minimum given the situation in the country. Iraq, which had undergone in 2021 the preparation for the 4G launch. Similarly, Kuwait in 2021 was preparing for the 5G launch. And Tunisia went through a network modernization. In Maldives, there's a higher CapEx due to an undersea cable investment. And in Algeria, we're going through some network modernization and some delays at custom inventories. In terms of free cash flow, we continued by increasing our free cash flow year-on-year, taking our proforma free cash flow from QAR 6.1 billion to QAR 6.4 billion for the full year 2022. That's a 3% increase. In Q4, we've managed to increase our free cash flow by 5%. We managed to offset the impact of lower EBITDA by even lower CapEx expenditure. In our consolidated footprint, our customer base has dropped from QAR 57.5 million to QAR 56 million. This is a 3% drop. We've grown in every single country except in Myanmar, where after the coup, the SIM registration regulation and the new SIM tax has affected our customer base. On the total of our footprint, including Indosat, we've grown the total customer base to QAR 158 million, which is a record for the group. In terms of guidance for the revenue, in 2022, we exceeded our guidance with a plus 4% in revenue. In 2023, we're expecting our revenue to remain flat, driven by 2 main reasons: we won't have the one-off effect of the revenue from the World Cup, but also we're expecting currency headwinds in some of our OpCos. We are still expecting to grow our revenue in every single OpCos in terms of local currency. In terms of EBITDA, we are minus 2 at 40%. We expect to have an EBITDA margin in the low 40% for 2023 with a strong focus on cost control. In terms of CapEx, we're retaining our CapEx intensity at 12%, which is a sustainable level for the growth of our operation. Our debt profile continues to improve on the back of the growth of our free cash flow. This has resulted in an upgrade of our credit rating from A- to A by S&P. As highlighted previously, we have very limited interest rate risk as 89% of our debt is on fixed rate.

Abdulla Al-Zaman

executive
#3

Thank you, Aziz. I'll be covering the performance of OpCos, starting with Qatar. Qatar had agreed, I would say a story in 2022, by hosting the World Cup and the performance of Qatar being great in 2022 due to the host of one of the main event on the world. Revenue grew up by 7% year-on-year, and this is driven by Ooredoo tv and postpaid and mobile money. Also, service revenue has very strong growth by up to 7%. Healthy EBITDA margin at 48%, a decrease mainly due to a sponsorship activity and other FIFA 2022 expenses. Customer numbers stood at 3.6 million, which is 14% year-on-year growth. Qatar performance in 2022 is a great performance, which contributed an overall revenue to the whole group. Okay. My second OpCo is Oman, which is also another good story. Oman revenue has increased by 5% year-on-year, and this is a growth mainly from the wholesale and postpaid and also device revenue. EBITDA increased 5% also year-on-year and EBITDA margin stood at 52%, which is a very healthy EBITDA margin. Customer number has improved -- or have reached approximately 3 million. There was also an increase on the fixed and equipment sales. Next is Kuwait, a stronger growth in the year 2022. Revenue has increased by 11% year-on-year. EBITDA also increased by 15% year-on-year, and we also notice an increase on customer base by 8% year-on-year. Another good story on one of our, I would say, main OpCo, which is Kuwait. Next is Iraq, Asiacell. As you are all aware, Asiacell performing in a very competitive market, even though we have noticed a stabilization in the revenue of 2022. EBITDA year-on-year dropped by 6%, mainly due to higher energy and lease line cost. Customer number also has increased by 7% year-on-year, reaching approximately 17 million. We also observed an increase in mobile and wholesale and a slightly drop on the devices. Next is Algeria. Even the reported number in QR show a decrease by 2%. In local currency, revenue increased by 3% year-on-year. EBITDA margin remained stable at 35%. And we've seen an obvious drop in the quarter 4 in EBITDA due to restructuring costs. Customer number increased to 13 million, 2% year-on-year growth. Next is Tunisia, a similar story. The reported number showing a decrease of 9% year-on-year. In local currency, revenue increased by 1%, driven by higher, I would say, mobile and fixed revenue in both consumer and B2B. EBITDA increased by 15% in local currency terms, driven by better cost control despite higher energy prices. Tunisia is still #1 mobile market share and the customer number stood at 7.1 million. Next, Myanmar. The revenue is showing a drop of 3% in QR, while in local currency, the revenue has achieved 15% in growth. Currency depreciated -- or the currency depreciation impact of 18%. EBITDA increased also by 22% due to higher revenue and strict cost control. I would say customer number declined also to 7.5 million, 34%. Also, we have noticed that mobile have grown by 14%, fixed by 33% and also wholesale by 33%. Very good and a strong performance in Myanmar. Another good story that I would like to share with you is Maldives. Maldives revenue has increased 8% year-on-year. EBITDA strong performance of 17% year-on-year. Customer base has increased to 387,000, up to 5% year-on-year. All other product has contributed positively to the increase of revenue. This is including mobile, fixed and wholesale. Next is Palestine. A fantastic performance, story in 2022. All-time high in revenue, up to 3% year-on-year. EBITDA increased 4%, mainly due to higher revenue. Customer number increased to 1.4 million, 2% year-on-year. This concludes the OpCo parts. Back to Andreas.

Andreas Goldau

executive
#4

Thank you very much, Abdulla. Before we go to the live Q&A part, let's have a look into the calendar. We have a couple of conferences coming up. At the end of this month, we're going to be in Dubai with Arqaam at the MENA Investor Conference. And then on the 8th and 9th of March, we're going to be in Dubai again with EFG Hermes. And at the end of May, we're going to be in the U.S. at the Bank of America Emerging Market Conference. [Operator Instructions] Okay. Thank you very much. And now we are coming to the Q&A part. I see some questions already coming in. [Operator Instructions] So I'm going to read out the first question from Arqaam. Ziad Itani would like to know what are the latest updates on the number range case in Kuwait. Sheikh Mohammed, do you want to take this one?

Mohammed bin bin Mohammed Al Thani

executive
#5

Well, this case still remains the same. As per the latest verdict, it's in our favor as relating to Kuwait. So there's no change on the position. And we're still waiting for such updates from the court. So no update since last quarter.

Andreas Goldau

executive
#6

Then we got another question from [ Manjun Tan ]. Can you elaborate on plans for cost control? Maybe that's a good question for our controller, Abdulla.

Abdulla Al-Zaman

executive
#7

Actually, we have started a discussion on setting up for a smart OpEx, and we have promised the Board that we'll come back to them, let's say, by end of quarter 1. And as we establish and implemented the stock -- a small CapEx last year, we are committed to do it. And we are in the discussion. And the last point, it's sitting in the plan, and inshallah, we will roll it by early, let's say, quarter 2.

Andreas Goldau

executive
#8

And then we got a question with regards to our M&A activities, maybe something for Rene. Recently, there were news around Vodafone looking to sell its stake in African business, Vodacom. Would Ooredoo be interested in that opportunity?

Rene Werner

executive
#9

In essence, we are always looking in the interest of our shareholders for opportunities that increase shareholder value. As such, we are obviously looking at opportunities if they offer them to ourselves. I cannot comment on this Vodacom question.

Andreas Goldau

executive
#10

Great. Yes, let's open up the audio questions then. A question coming here from [ Nasser Ayafi ]. [ Nasser ], we opened up your microphone now. Can you talk, please?

Unknown Analyst

analyst
#11

This is [ Nasser ] from [ Dalala ]. My question is, what is the schedule to -- for paying off the bonds in full?

Andreas Goldau

executive
#12

In regards to our bonds outstanding, do we have any plans for paying off bonds early and what's the next maturity?

Aziz Ahmad Fakhroo

executive
#13

Okay. Actually, today, we are sticking to the plan by paying the equity by 2025. We have not discussed any plan to pay it earlier than that.

Andreas Goldau

executive
#14

Okay. That's very clear.

Mohammed bin bin Mohammed Al Thani

executive
#15

And currently at a level of 1.1x net debt to EBITDA, we have no plans in anticipating any prepayment, especially at the current rates. You have to remember that 90% of our debt is at a fixed cost and was secured before interest rates increased. So we're very comfortable at that position.

Andreas Goldau

executive
#16

[ Nasser ], I hope that answers your question. Then I'm going to open up the line for Omar Maher from EFG.

Omar Maher

analyst
#17

Hello? Can you hear me?

Andreas Goldau

executive
#18

Yes, we can hear you.

Omar Maher

analyst
#19

Okay. So just perhaps a follow-up on Aziz's comment just made regarding the leverage. It seems like it's a very comfortable position. And I would add to that perhaps the strong cash flow generation at the cash balance and balance sheet. So what is stopping you today from increasing your dividend payout significantly above where you are right now? That's the first question.

Aziz Ahmad Fakhroo

executive
#20

Omar, you have to keep in mind that we raised the dividend by 30% last year. We raised the dividend by 42% this year. Cumulative, that's an 85% jump in dividends over the last years. We believe this is a healthy payout. We're at the top of our guidance this year. Last year, we were also very close to the guidance. We also want to retain quite a bit of dry power, especially in the environment which is upcoming. We don't know what the future holds. And as you know, we have different initiatives in the pipeline going from investing in the data center, which we announced the center capacity, as well as our mobile financial services, which we also explained in our Strategy Day, which will require some form of capital going forward.

Omar Maher

analyst
#21

No, I agree that definitely it's good to keep some firepower on the side for all the -- everything that you have in the pipeline. But you also have something coming in the opposite direction, which is the tower carve out. I think you talked about this last time. You mentioned probably by mid-'23, you're going to have something more concrete to share with us. So that brings me to my second question, whether you have any updates to talk about? And if you have all of that on the side, plus what's coming from the carve out, plus the sale of Myanmar, so quite a few elements that are adding to this firepower or dry power that you talked about. So -- or does this mean that perhaps you have something bigger, that you're looking at a bigger opportunity?

Aziz Ahmad Fakhroo

executive
#22

Well, as Rene mentioned, we remain always opportunistic when we look at opportunities. We've also been extremely disciplined, where we try to keep in mind shareholder value maximization. So we've seen a lot of opportunities. I think over the last 2 years, we've seen over 20 to 30 opportunities. We've passed on every single one of them because we didn't believe they were actually value accretive to our shareholders. That doesn't mean -- especially, as the environment carries on in the current situation, we might see more compelling opportunities coming up. And we, of course, want to keep dry powder for these all in this event. When it comes to the tower carve out, we mentioned on the Strategy Day, which was in November or December, I don't remember, that we're running a process. It's a very healthy process. In the first round of the bids, we had over close to 50 bidders. We're now down to a hand few in the final round. Hopefully, we'll come up with an announcement, as we said, current of 2023. Once we have an announcement and we can announce the proceeds, then we will decide what we do with the proceeds. We won't spend them before we get them.

Andreas Goldau

executive
#23

And I see Zia typed a question, but he also raised his hand from Lebanon. So I'm going to open up your microphone and you can ask the question, Zia, please.

Ayisha Zia

analyst
#24

Congratulations on the strong results. Just a couple of questions from our end. So first, any updates on the Myanmar sale exit? Is it just the regulatory approvals that are pending? Or are there any other hurdles?

Aziz Ahmad Fakhroo

executive
#25

Yes. The Myanmar sales with the seller all is done. We're waiting for regulatory approvals. As you know, in February, the government there extended the state of emergency plus did a few cabinet changes. We are in constant contact with both the seller and the regulatory authorities. We understand and hope that we should get all the approval in the short future. At the same time, we can't guarantee a time line. We're confident that we should get this transaction closed in the near future. But as a reminder, if you remember, our competitor, Telenor, between announcement and closing, I think it took more than a year, something like 18 months. We announced the transaction 4 months ago, and we're hoping really to have it closed before the year-end actually, even the first of this year. But we -- it is within the authorities hands.

Ayisha Zia

analyst
#26

Okay. That's very clear. And on that market, specifically, are the FX losses incurred in Q4 mainly related to Myanmar?

Aziz Ahmad Fakhroo

executive
#27

So we had -- you're talking about the translation losses?

Ayisha Zia

analyst
#28

Yes.

Abdulla Al-Zaman

executive
#29

Majorly from minimal.

Aziz Ahmad Fakhroo

executive
#30

Yes. The biggest impact is from Myanmar.

Ayisha Zia

analyst
#31

Okay. Perfect. That's very clear. And just circling back to the question on Vodacom specifically because, I mean, it seems that this is a potential consideration for Ooredoo. I mean, don't you think that there is a bit of a risk going back into Africa specifically with the FX and regulatory tax risks, specifically, we're seeing Ooredoo become a clean entity now, and there wasn't a definite rejection of this...

Aziz Ahmad Fakhroo

executive
#32

I don't know where you heard where that we were going back to Africa. First, we were done -- never really there. We're in North Africa, but it's hard to go back where you were in there. 2, as we said, if you highlight -- if you heard my previous comment, we've looked at over 30 opportunities over the past 2 years in terms of this potential acquisition. A lot were actually situated in the African basin, others in the Asian continent. We've passed on every single one of them because we didn't view, it create that a compelling return for us and for shareholders. I trust we will carry on with the same level of discipline. And that's it, we are aware of the process that's as much as I can say right now, but I would tend to share your view.

Ayisha Zia

analyst
#33

Okay. Perfect. Very clear. And on North Africa, in Tunisia, what is the reason why you're not growing even when we isolate the FX losses specifically?

Aziz Ahmad Fakhroo

executive
#34

Well, in local currency, I think we're flat or very minor, minor growth. If you look is -- we're the #1 in the market in terms of revenue market share. As you know the currency has gone through quite a bit of political and economical turmoil. It's firmly the spectrum of all our jurisdiction on an economic standpoint, probably the weakest one we have. You look at Algeria, Iraq, these are fuel denominated economy. So as much as there's been inflationary pressures on energy costs in these geographies. We also shows a general GDP uplift in these countries. In terms of Tunisia, we don't have that. So there's quite a lot of inflationary pressures within the country, which we're not able to pass through to the end customer.

Ayisha Zia

analyst
#35

Okay. And last question on EDA specifically. Any color what was the last dividend paid by Asiacell, you're taking money out of that market?

Aziz Ahmad Fakhroo

executive
#36

Off of my head, I don't have it here. I think we can circulate it later up.

Abdulla Al-Zaman

executive
#37

Yes, we will share it later.

Aziz Ahmad Fakhroo

executive
#38

We will share it later but our dividend upstream from Iraq has been very strong and our capital repatriation over the last few 2 years has been extremely strong. So we have no risk there.

Andreas Goldau

executive
#39

Yes. So on Iraq, we're going to provide that information. We're going to add it to the transcript of this call later on. And just on Tunisia actually note currency terms, the full year numbers have been up by 1%. Okay. There was an anonymous question. Can you talk about the strategy given very strong cash balances, would you be looking at more inorganic growth?

Aziz Ahmad Fakhroo

executive
#40

It's the same question, and I think you should talk to each other. Look, we remain very opportunistic, whether it's in our core market, which is in terms of the core connectivity business and also in the adjacencies which we're focusing on, so data centers and FX. At the same time, to date, we haven't seen any transaction which was compelling in terms of value accretion for our shareholders. So we remain very disciplined. That being said, we've done a series of very small in-market transaction over the past few years, buying some fiber capacity, expanding in our core markets where we do view that this adds actually quite a high return to our local operation and then percolates back up to the group, but any major transformative transaction is nothing as of yet.

Andreas Goldau

executive
#41

Great. We got another type question here. Can you elaborate more on the increase in CapEx expectations for next year be guided on QAR 3 billion?

Aziz Ahmad Fakhroo

executive
#42

So we are not increasing. We actually kept our CapEx intensity stable last year. If you remember, we guided between 14% and 12%. We actually came just below our guidance. This year, we're keeping our CapEx intensity guidance at 12%, which we're keeping stable. We believe it's -- given the nature of our markets. And we still have some network enhancement in certain countries. We do believe it's the right ratio across our footprint. And if you look at it in terms of emerging markets and a lot of the geographies, this is towards the lower end of CapEx intensities for a lot of the markets we operate in.

Andreas Goldau

executive
#43

Great. [Operator Instructions] Omar Maher is having another verbal question. So I'm going to -- Omar, if you can ask your question, please.

Omar Maher

analyst
#44

Just a question on actually -- sorry, if I missed this in your recorded conference at the beginning, but it seemed quite weak in the fourth quarter. So I just wanted to understand whether there's any adjustment, I'm guessing not because there's been weakness on the revenue as well. But is the third operator you're finding starting to flex their muscles or is it something else?

Aziz Ahmad Fakhroo

executive
#45

The third operator is actually ramping up in Oman, which was expected. They're currently at our estimate, it's hard to estimate because there still haven't disclosed really the market share. But when we tally up our numbers, the market numbers, we do Oman Telecoms numbers, we would estimate the revenue market share between the 4% to 5% range, which was within our expectation for the third operator plus backed by Vodafone. That being said, you have to remember that we have a wholesaler agreement and a roaming agreement with Vodafone for 3 years -- it's a 3 years agreements. So they're using a big part of our network, and we're getting a revenue stream. So even if they're getting a bit of cost acquisition on the retail side, we'll still be recuperating a part of the revenue back on the wholesale side.

Omar Maher

analyst
#46

But that's not reflected in the fourth quarter revenues, is it? The wholesale part from the...

Aziz Ahmad Fakhroo

executive
#47

No, it is. As their network will ramp up, the wholesale part will start reducing. The flip side of that is once the wholesale reduces, it means that there are customer -- retail customer back for acquisition in the market.

Omar Maher

analyst
#48

Got it. Am I correct in thinking that there is perhaps more significant pricing pressure than that we the issuing?

Aziz Ahmad Fakhroo

executive
#49

They had some aggressive campaigns. What we're seeing is a stabilization. I don't think these campaigns can run for too long. The key thing is [indiscernible] with the 2 incumbents in the market to avoid a market erosion in Oman, which would be detrimental for all players.

Andreas Goldau

executive
#50

Okay. I got some new information on Asiacell, there last dividend was on IQD per share for last year to come back to the previous question. And we got a new question here, a financial question. What are the impairment losses shown in first quarter 2022?

Aziz Ahmad Fakhroo

executive
#51

So the impairment is mainly AMH. I think it's QAR 196 million. It's always our conservative approach. AMH holding, if you recall, is a minority stake we hold in the AMH holding, which in turns holds a stake in Startup, which is listed as the listed entity in Singapore, the values we just revised are the value of our holding.

Andreas Goldau

executive
#52

Excellent. I don't see any further raised hands, although there's another question coming in on Algeria from [ Celia Lungborg ]. Meanwhile Algeria has recorded a remarkable drop in EBITDA, what it's due to?

Abdulla Al-Zaman

executive
#53

This is due to restructuring cost. Provision of restructuring costs, nothing more than that.

Aziz Ahmad Fakhroo

executive
#54

So it's a one-off item, the same like [indiscernible].

Abdulla Al-Zaman

executive
#55

Yes.

Andreas Goldau

executive
#56

Good. Any other questions? Yes, I see something coming in. There's a question from [ Praduma Mishra ] on the Iraqi market. The press release says that the lower EBITDA is due to higher lease line and energy costs, could you elaborate on the element of higher lease line?

Aziz Ahmad Fakhroo

executive
#57

Lease line costs in Iraq have gone up around 40%. Energy costs have gone up 20%. That's mainly -- that represent nearly the whole erosion in EBITDA in Iraq. And we're the data leader in Iraq. And as data consumption increases in Iraq, our lease line cost increases, and that leads to a slightly lower margin on their product. But we still do being a data leader is primordial in any market we are.

Andreas Goldau

executive
#58

Great. Yes. I don't see any more questions. Whenever I say that something else is coming in. Okay. So we got another question here. On Algeria, competition has published results and its revenue and EBITDA has increased.

Abdulla Al-Zaman

executive
#59

Yes, Djezzy seems announced their numbers.

Andreas Goldau

executive
#60

Djezzy. But what is the last word? MRT?

Abdulla Al-Zaman

executive
#61

Market share or...

Andreas Goldau

executive
#62

Market share? What is MRT? Can you retype that, please? Or what's the market or amortization?

Abdulla Al-Zaman

executive
#63

Amortization maybe.

Aziz Ahmad Fakhroo

executive
#64

No, they ask about amortization.

Abdulla Al-Zaman

executive
#65

No, I don't think that question is amortization.

Andreas Goldau

executive
#66

Yes. MRT.

Aziz Ahmad Fakhroo

executive
#67

I think that's something that came...

Andreas Goldau

executive
#68

Yes, market share.

Abdulla Al-Zaman

executive
#69

No. But we have mentioned also in local currency Algeria revenue has grown 3% year-on-year. And EBITDA also had a stability at the level of 35%. So we still growing in terms of revenue on local currency.

Aziz Ahmad Fakhroo

executive
#70

I think in terms of revenue market share, we're actually growing in Algeria.

Rene Werner

executive
#71

Exactly. So we're taking share.

Aziz Ahmad Fakhroo

executive
#72

We're actually taking market. I don't have the number exactly on their hand, but it's been a strong performance versus competition.

Andreas Goldau

executive
#73

Yes. So we're going to add again a comment in the script on the market trend in Algeria. Then if there are no further questions, I would just like to remind you that our next investor call is the Q1 call on the 19th of April. We're going to have to get them due to the each break and the investor call that is tentatively scheduled for the 4th of May. We're going to be joining a couple of conferences. So we hope to see you there. Any questions in the meantime, reach out to the Investor Relations Team. Any closing remarks?

Aziz Ahmad Fakhroo

executive
#74

No, thank you very much. Please, any comments, any metrics you would like us to disclose more in our reports, please, we're always taking feedback, so. Thank you for your participation.

Andreas Goldau

executive
#75

Thank you very much. That concludes the call.

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