The state-owned monopoly, Ethio Telecom, on Wednesday, announced it has collected over 18.4 billion birr in revenue from its service sales in six months.

The company announced that it has achieved 5.5 percent less than what it had planned for the first half of the budget year (to collect 19.5 billion birr). However, the company said it was satisfied with achieving 94.5 percent of its plan.

Abdurahim Ahmed, Corporate Communication Head said on Wednesday that, thanks to the new alternative services it has introduced over the past six months, it managed to register revenue that is 18 percent higher than the previous year’s. He further highlighted, revenue from mobile services contributed the lion’s share of the total amount, fetching over 73.9 percent. Meanwhile, internet services and international telecom service incontributed 19.5 and 4.9 percent of the revenue, respectively.

According to Abdurahim, out of the gross revenue, the company has earned around 13.2 billion birr profit before tax. The registered profit was higher than what was planned earlier (around 12.5 billion birr), adding that the total profit earnings does not include tax, depreciation and amortization.

Currently, its total subscriber roster surged to 64.4 million users which increased by 7.5 percent compared to the previous year. Out of the total subscribers, 62.6 million are mobile subscribers including 16.05 internet users. Meanwhile the latest number of regular internet subscribers has reached 1.18 million.

Ethio Telecom, previously known as the Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation (ETC), was originally a division of the Ministry of Post, Telephone and Telegraph. Ethio Telecom, which is dubbed a “cash cow”, is one of the “Big-5” group of state-owned corporations in Ethiopia.

Source: ThgeReporter