Mubasher TV
Contact Us Advertising   العربية

Zain KSA seeks to turn profitable, pay dividends - Kabbani

Zain KSA seeks to turn profitable, pay dividends - Kabbani
CEO Hassan Kabbani in an exclusive with Mubasher
ZAIN KSA
7030
0.14% 13.82 0.02

Riyadh-Mubasher: Zain KSA seeks to swing to profitability and pay cash dividends as soon as possible, CEO Hassan Kabbani told Mubasher in an exclusive.

However, he said the operator is facing some challenges, as it paid SAR 23 billion for the 3G license, the highest in the world, believing that this licence was distinguished and could allow the company to offer any technological services.

He added that the licence was expected to offer the telecom firm more advantages compared to the other operators so that it can compete with them in the Saudi market, but this has not happened.

Zain entered the local market amid tough conditions such as the global financial crisis and the highest licence value, the CEO said.

"We have been struggling to boost our position in the market in terms of prices or services over the past six years. We now have more than 10 million customers, which helped us compete with our peers through top-notch network," Kabbani said.

Zain managed to remarkably cut its losses over the past period, especially in the first quarter of 2015, which means that the company is moving on the right track.

"There are some organizational issues which can help the operator swing to profitability, but they are still subject to the approval of the telecom authority," the CEO noted.

"We have signed some contracts over the past period, which will reflect positively on us," Kabbani said. "We are optimistic about future, especially as our permanent partners are Huawei, Nokia, NEC, Cisco and Alcatel-Lucent."

The financials posted for the past quarters indicate that the company will continue recoding robust figures in the next period, the CEO said.

Translated by Abdul Maguid Aboshahla