The General Assembly of Etisalat today approved the recommendation of the Board of Directors to distribute dividends at 35% of nominal share value for the second half of 2008. This makes the total dividend awarded by Etisalat in 2008 to be 60 %.
The General Assembly also decided, during its Annual General Meeting, to issue 20% bonus shares (one bonus share for every 5 shares).
The General Assembly of Etisalat also elected 4 new Board of Directors on behalf of the private sector. The new members are: Khalaf Bin Ahmed Al Otaiba, Sheikh Ahmed Moh’d Sultan Bin Suroor Al Dhaheri, Ahmed Bin Eisa Bin Nasser Al Serkal and Abdul Rahman Hassan Al Rustomani.
Comments from Mr. Mohammed Hassan Omran, Chairman of Etisalat: In 2008 Etisalat has been able to maintain, and in certain spheres improve on, our growth trajectory in terms of financial and operational parameters. We registered 22%. growth in revenue and 19% in our profits against those of the last fiscal year, with our aggregated subscribers crossing 80 million across 17 countries. On a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR), our Group revenue and net profit have both grown by 26%. over the last four years.
I would like to take this opportunity to emphasize the Corporation’s sincere gratitude to the leadership and government of the UAE for their continued support of the Corporation, and also compliment them on the astute fiscal and structural macro-economic measures which have been introduced to ensure sustained prosperity and growth in the UAE.
The Corporation has always been selective in its investment approach and will now become even more so. However, we also view this turbulent time as an opportunity in various spheres, asset valuations being just one of them. Driven by our vision of becoming one of the top ten Telecom operators in the World, we continued, albeit carefully, to enhance and consolidate our global footprint over 2008.
We entered India, one of the largest telecommunications markets in the world both in terms of growth and scale. Our commercial launch in India is planned for 2009. Our investment in India complements the other regional investments in Pakistan (PTCL), Afghanistan, and Indonesia, representing one of the fastest-growing markets in the Telecommunication world. The Corporation today possesses a balanced portfolio with investments in West Asia, South Asia, and Africa, with a common denominator of high growth potential.
In reference to our now extensive International portfolio, we altered our strategy, gradually shifting from an acquirer mode to focusing more on operational excellence. In order to manage operations in 17 countries across two continents, we initiated a restructuring within the Corporation to create a corporate umbrella structure, which will work at monitoring and optimising performance and returns, inside and outside the UAE. An initial interim structure has started operating from the beginning of 2009. The key objective will be to optimise the synergies that now exist with a global footprint, and thus ensure that each of these entities reaps the benefits of being part of an extended Etisalat network.
Comments from Mohammad Khalfan Al Qamzi, Chief Executive Officer, Etisalat: 2008 has been a landmark year in more ways than one. A year that started with lot of promise saw some truly astonishing, unexpected, and some thoroughly disturbing economic events unfold as it progressed, which made most of us in business management look for the best short- to mid-term strategies to ride over this uncertain economic phase. The year saw our mobile subscribers total cross the 7 million mark.
An important point to note is that the Corporation continued to grow in an open competitive environment and kept pace with the overall market growth, thus demonstrating the growth potential in the telecommunication sector, which continues to grow faster than the overall GDP growth in the UAE. This also underlines the fact that communication has joined the basic necessities club in the hierarchy of needs in our everyday lives.
I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate all our stakeholders, including all my colleagues who contributed to this result. And I wish to congratulate all those who participated in achieving this success and thank all Etisalat staff for their intensive efforts, This success was largely made possible by our collective effort to re-look at internal processes in pursuing our key objective of continuously creating and delivering value to our customers. We are aware of the high expectations which our customers place on us, and our endeavors during the last year were focused on matching and, wherever possible, exceeding them.
