Saudi Telecom’s Q4 profit rises as operating expenses fall

The company's net profit increased 15.6% to Dh2.7bn Saudi riyals

STC's revenue increased 14.7 per cent yearly to 15.2 billion riyals. Waseem Obaidi for The National

Saudi Telecom Company, the biggest telecoms operator in the kingdom by market value, reported a 15.6 per cent increase in fourth-quarter net profit on the back of lower operating expenses.

Net profit increased to 2.7 billion Saudi riyals ($733 million) in the three months to December 31, compared with 2.3bn riyals during the same quarter last year, the company said in a statement to Saudi Arabia's Tadawul stock exchange, where its shares trade.

Operating profit increased 37 per cent annually to 3.3bn riyals.

The company’s fourth-quarter revenue rose 14.7 per cent to 15.2bn riyals compared with the same period last year.

For the full year 2020, the company's net profit jumped almost 4 per cent to more than 11bn riyals, while revenues surged 8.4 per cent to nearly 59bn riyals.

“STC achieved the highest annual revenue in the past eight years,” Nasser bin Sulaiman Al-Nasser, chief executive of STC, said.

“This achievement was primarily due to the increased demand for STC's various services and products … and the company’s ability to meet this demand promptly and efficiently, especially during [the] Covid-19 pandemic,” he added.

Last month, STC announced an investment of $500m in cloud services in a partnership with venture capital fund eWTP Arabia Capital and Alibaba Cloud, the technology arm of Chinese e-commerce firm Alibaba.

In November, the company's digital payment arm STC Pay sold an equity stake of 15 per cent, worth 750m riyals, to Western Union. The proceeds will be used to develop the company and support its expansion plans, STC said.

The company’s earnings before interest, taxes, zakat, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) for the fourth quarter was 5.7bn riyals, an annual increase of 14.6 per cent.

STC is majority owned by the kingdom's Public Investment Fund, which holds a 70 per cent stake in the telecom company.

The company, which has its headquarters in Riyadh, has about 13,500 employees in Saudi Arabia and more than 19,000 across the STC Group.