Riyadh – Mubasher: Mobile Telecommunication Company Saudi Arabia (Zain) on Wednesday announced reducing its accumulated losses to 30.84% of its SAR 5.837 billion ($1.56 billion) capital from 38.77% previously. The announcement came with the company's disclosure of its financial results for the full year 2018.

The Saudi telecom operator’s accumulated losses amounted SAR 1.8 billion as at 31 December 2018, according to the company’s statement to the Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul).

The reduced loss was due to the increase in Zain’s revenues by SAR 225 million to SAR 7.531 billion, supported by the growing demand for the company’s products and services, Zain noted.

In addition, the cost of revenues fell SAR 404 million mainly due to the drop in annual royalty fees, leading to a growth in gross profit by SAR 629 million.

Other income rose by SAR 15 million, encouraged by the implementation of the Universal Service Fund granted from the government, while finance income surged to SAR 10 million generated from short-term cash deposits, added to the implementation of the international financial accounting standards (IFRS) 15 and 9, all of which helped improve Zain’s net profits to jump 2,666.7% to SAR 332 million in 2018, against SAR 12 million in the prior year.

The Saudi telecom operator’s revenues rose 3% to SAR 7.53 billion last year, compared to SAR 7.3 billion in 2017.

Saudi Zain's stock closed Wednesday near stable at SAR 9.40.