Telecom Egypt today announces its Q1 2022 results for the period ending 31 March 2022.

Q1 2022 key highlights

• Consolidated revenue grew 12% YoY landing at EGP 9.4bn. The growth was mainly fuelled by higher data revenue (+22% YoY) constituting 74% of top line growth, followed by higher cable and voice revenues.
• Customer base grew across the board with fixed voice and data customers increasing by 11% and 14% YoY, respectively and mobile customers increasing by 19% YoY crossing the 10mn mark.
• EBITDA came in at EGP 3.6bn, recording a healthy margin of 38% driven by an enhanced revenue mix and continued cost optimization.
• Net profit landed at EGP 1.4bn declining 36% YoY due to non-operational items. Excluding such items including Vodafone Egypt’s one-offs, provisions, impairments and FX impact, net profit reaches EGP 1.7bn, almost flat YoY.
• In-service CapEx/sales recorded 16%, while cash CapEx reached EGP 4.8bn including the second instalment of the new spectrum.
• Net debt reached EGP 17.3bn, representing 1.2x of annualized EBITDA compared to 0.9x in FY2021 due to the EGP devaluation, without which it would have declined to 1.1x, while the effective interest rate declined to 4.6%.

Adel Hamed, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, commented:

“I am very proud with Telecom Egypt’s operational and financial performance during this quarter on all fronts despite encountering some challenges from global headwinds. The company continued to witness growth among its BUs, with top line growing 12% YoY and EBITDA margin reaching 38%, in line with our guidance. Retail led the growth (+16% YoY), thanks to higher data revenue driven by a growing customer base across all services and healthy ARPU trends. This growth led to organic flat operating and net profit YoY, managing to lessen the impact of higher D&A costs in light of the new spectrum acquired and the devaluation accounting treatment. We continue to focus on FCFF, which organically came in at EGP 0.7bn, excluding the payment of the new spectrum’s instalment. The company was able to navigate through several challenges this quarter and we continue to look forward to growth across the P&L and thrive for additional revenue streams and cost optimization efforts to future-proof the organization and enhance value to our shareholders. Our strategy to achieve these financial goals revolves around enhanced customer experience, we have put together an all-encompassing plan targeted at each customer touchpoint to move from improved service quality, to refined products to a consistent and convenient service to all customer groups across our different business units. Such plan will not only improve our value proposition to our customers, but also make us more efficient, available and ready for the future.”