| Kippreport.com

Oman Telecommunications Co (Omantel) on Sunday posted a 25-percent rise in its quarterly profit as the state-owned carrier added new subscribers during the year but the results fell slightly short of analysts forecasts.

The former monopoly made net profit of 28 million rials ($72.7 million) in the third quarter ended Sept. 30, compared with net profit of 22.4 million rials in the same period a year ago, it said in a bourse statement.

Analyst forecast, on average, profit of 28.9 million rials, according to a Reuters poll.

Omantel, which is 70-percent owned by the Omani government, said quarterly revenues rose 13 percent to 109.9 million rials, up from 97.4 million rials a year earlier.

The telecom operator’s total customer base rose to 3.4 million for the nine month period ending Sept. 30, compared with 3.3 million for the same period last year.

Omantel is on the lookout for operating licenses and network building contracts abroad as competition in the sultanate’s mobile telecom sector gets tougher, its chief executive said in August.

The firm’s monopoly was broken in 2006 by Nawras, a unit of Qatar Telecommunications Co, boosting competition among mobile network operators in the country.

Omantel shares are down 7.2 percent year-to-date. ($1 = 0.385 Omani Rials) (Reporting by Dinesh Nair; Editing by Amran Abocar)