Zain, the Kuwaiti mobile phone operator, will refocus on its Middle East markets following the successful US$10.7bn sale of its businesses in 15 countries in sub-Saharan Africa to India’s Bharti Airtel.
Zain will concentrate on increasing its market…
Zain, the Kuwaiti mobile phone operator, will refocus on its Middle East markets following the successful US$10.7bn sale of its businesses in 15 countries in sub-Saharan Africa to India’s Bharti Airtel.
Zain will concentrate on increasing its market share in its eight remaining markets, said Nabeel Bin Salamah, the company’s new chief executive officer.
Salamah is the first senior executive at Zain to outline a strategy for the business following its disposal of the sub-Saharan businesses to Bharti. Zain signed a definitive sale agreement with Bharti on 30 March, but the operations have yet to change hands as Bharti awaits approval from national regulators in each of the 15 different markets.
The sale is the largest-ever takeover of a company in Africa and the Middle East, according to Dealogic.
“With the sale of the Zain Africa assets about to be concluded, the company will re-engineer itself while at the same time focusing its resources on further increasing market leadership in the Middle East,” said Salamah.
Zain will drive further profits from its capital expenditure in Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Sudan, added Salamah.
“We expect to reap further financial rewards of these strategic and capital-intensive investments in the years ahead,” he said.
Zain’s net profits in the first three months of this year fell 32% to KD51.5m (US$177m), even though they included the profits of the 15 African businesses. Zain has not updated the market on the profitability of its individual country operations since the end of September last year so analysts covering the company cannot tell which operations dragged down the group’s profitability.
