Omantel Q3 profit drops 33pct as expenses rise

Oman Telecommunications Co's (Omantel) third-quarter profit declined 33 per cent, falling short of analysts' estimates, as expenses rose.

The national telecoms provider made a profit of 22 million Omani rials ($57.1 million) in the three months through September, compared with 32.83m in the year-earlier period, according to Reuters calculations.

Analysts polled by Reuters had on average estimated a third-quarter profit of 27.50m rials.

Omantel had reported a nine-month profit of 83m rials, down from 105.8m in the same period last year.

Its expenses climbed to 224m rials from 191m due to "aggressive expansion of 3.5G network and the depreciation resulting from introducing new technologies on the network," Omantel said in a statement on Monday.

State-controlled Omantel's monopoly on the telecommunications market in Oman was broken in 2006 by Nawras, a unit of Qatar Telecommunications.

Shares of Omantel closed 0.3 per cent higher earlier on Monday. The results were released after trading hours.