du announces its financial results

The company reported revenues of AED 183.2m for the quarter, which resulted in a better than forecasted net loss of AED 215.8 million.

Ahmad Bin Byat, Chairman of du said this quarter has been a milestone for the country, with the successful launch of du's mobile services. He went on to say 'I am extremely pleased to see such an overwhelming response to the commercial launch of du. We have worked towards this day for a long time and I would like to thank the UAE Government and each of the local Governments for their continued support and assistance in rolling out our network. I am also pleased to be able to report that we now have 19% UAE Nationals in our employment, the largest single nationality in the company. As we continue to pursue our UAE National development programme, Masar, I am sure that we will see this rise to a more significant level.'

Osman Sultan, the Chief Executive Officer of du, added that this quarter had seen significant levels of marketing activities leading up to the launch. From the ending of the highly successful Number Booking Campaign in January, to the announcement of the prepaid/postpaid and business offerings in February, coupled with the special Thank You offer for all those who had expressed their faith in the company by booking their number in the Number Booking Campaign, du has been rolling out innovative products and services consistently, Sultan said.

He went to say, 'In addition, du is proud to be the first to bring to the market a vast array of initiatives including Pay Per Second Billing, Mobile TV, Mobile Payments and a worldwide first, Number Booking offering convenience.'

On 11 February du officially launched its services to the country and opened their own retail shops together with over 90 Premium dealers to the public on 25 February. The demand over the weeks following the opening surpassed all expectations and as at 31 March 2007 du has sold in excess of 250,000 mobiles.

Sultan added, 'We have acknowledged that this initial unprecedented level of demand placed stresses on our systems, our Call Centre and Retail outlets; however this is only to be expected in any start up of this scale. We have made a continuous effort to brief the public on the ongoing progress and are confident that having come through this period of high activity, we are now firmly on the path to becoming the number one customer care organization in the country.'

'We are now focusing on optimizing our support systems to ensure that all customer touch points continue to improve to give the level of customer experience expected; furthermore we are continuing the expansion and optimization of our network and have recently announced the introduction of national roaming where our network does not reach today,' Sultan concluded.