| Kippreport.com

End of the line? Vodafone Qatar shareholder ‘frightened’

June 19, 2011 4:09 by kippreport

Struggling since 2009, Vodafone Qatar is yet to make a profit. With high hopes (and fingers assumingly crossed), Vodafone Qatar aims to make its first within this year with reports of increasing mobile phone subscribers to 600,00.

Kipp not really wanting to burst anyone’s bubbles here, but analysts doubt Vodafone Qatar’s ability to do so, according to this article from The National.

In 2009, Qatar’s second telcom company lost 225.3 million Qatari rials but the company did show a “not-so-bad-but-not-good-either” improvement this year, after it reporting a loss of 27.1 million Qatari rials on March 31 before the tax for the year ending.

Things aren’t looking particularly sunny for Vodafone Qatar, though. On Sunday an annual meeting was held where Vodafone Qatar announced that distributing dividends has been postponed until 2013. (UPDATE: Kipp previously reported dividends distribution will be postponed to 2014 when in fact it has been moved to 2013, as per reports here.)

During the conference, a shareholder reportedly claimed that he was “frightened” by the performance of the firm, as quoted by The Peninsula.

Vodafone Qatar have also released that they may be trying to compete with Skype by launching their own Voice over internet protocol (VOIP) as many are using Skype through their services, However, this plan is yet to be seen through as there is no room for more operators within Qatar.

Tags: Qatar, telecoms, Vodafone, vodafone qatar