Kuwait's Zain posts 26.6% fall in profits

Kuwaiti telecommunications giant Zain said on Tuesday its net profit for the first quarter of 2015 dived 26.6 percent over negative performance in Iraq and losses by its Saudi unit.

The largest mobile operator in Kuwait said it posted a net profit of 41 million dinars ($136.2 million) in the first three months of 2015 compared with 55.9 million dinars ($185.7 million) in the same period last year.

The dive in profits was attributed to the security situation in Iraq that has hit its operations there hard, in addition to losses by its Saudi subsidiary and a $270-million investment by Zain Jordan to launch 4G technology.

"The quarter reflected mixed results in what were quite challenging conditions in several of our key markets, especially Iraq," CEO Scott Gegenheimer said.

Revenues also dropped 16.7 percent to $942 million on March 31 from $1.1 billion a year ago, Zain said in a statement.

Besides Kuwait, Zain has operations in Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Sudan. It also manages a unit in Morocco.

The number of total subscribers remained unchanged at around 46 million across the eight countries.

Zain, in which the government holds a stake of almost 25 percent, is one of three mobile operators in the emirate, along with the National Telecommunications Co. (Wataniya) and Kuwait Telecommunications Co. (VIVA).