Question
Ooredoo QSC is a Qatarimultinational telecommunications companyheadquartered in Doha. Ooredoo provides mobile, wireless, wire line, and content services with market share in domestic and international
Ooredoo QSC is a Qatarimultinational telecommunications companyheadquartered in Doha. Ooredoo provides mobile, wireless, wire line, and content services with market share in domestic and international telecommunication markets, and in business and residential markets. Ooredoo has been on a digital transformation journey for some yearsnow, investing in networks, technologyand people so that we can deliver transformational digital experiences for our customerswherever they want them online.
That forward-looking strategy deliveredstrong returns in 2020, as the communities we serve had to work and shelter at home, and proved even more important into 2021, as traffic volumes and demand for fast networks continuedto rise. So many aspects of peoples lives are primarily digital these days work, finance, entertainment and home that the role of a reliable connectivity providerhas never been more important.
Ooredoo is well-positioned to see strong returns from our digital-first strategy, as long as we continue to be agile and adapt to the fast-changing nature of our markets. Maintaining a culture of innovative thinking, developing new partnerships and delivering advanced services for unaddressed areas are criticalsuccess factors for Ooredoo as we work tomake it easier for customers to find, buy and use our products online and deliver robust returns for our shareholders.
Ooredoo is committed to creating value for our stakeholders based on the strongand sustainable development of our operations. While many businesses were impacted by the difficult macroconditions created by the COVID-19 pandemic and other challenges, Ooredoo prospered because of our defined strategy and prudent management.
2021 was a strong year, where we achieved substantial growth across all key financial and non-financial metrics. We accelerated commercial momentum, resulting in a positive financial performance with higher revenues, an expanded customer base, improvedcash reserves and healthy EBITDA.
Ooredoos Competitive Strategy:
Ooredoos competitive strategy, strongleadership and continued investment in broadband networks, as well as disciplined execution management, drove positive momentum in our competitive position in 2021. We drewkey lessons from 2020 to support the evolution of our strategy, prioritising customer experience and the extraction of optimum value from our assets for our shareholders.
Ooredoos purpose is to Enrich peoples digital lives. We are here to create enjoyable customer experiences, empowering customers to connect through a strong ecosystem of connectivity, digital and ICT services. We provide these by working with partners across our global footprint.
Our Group values Caring, Connecting and Challenging extend across all Operating Companies, guiding every initiative and interaction within Ooredoo as well as withour partners. We take personal ownership;are committed to being candid; adopt agile ways of working to be responsive tochanges in our industry; and see coachingas a fundamental element to growing our talents.
The strength of our vision and values wasdemonstrated by our response to the global COVID-19 pandemic and our agile evolution to meet the changing needs of our customers into 2021. The speed with which we pivoted to support remoteworking, our faster broadband networks and the shift of many key services to online was made possible by our operational approach. We are working to future-proof our business model as a connectivity provider in an environment of accelerating change.
Our evolved strategyfocuses on five key strategic pillars:
Value-Creating Portfolio:
We are constantly reviewing the use and deployment of capital in our portfolio witha focus on creating value. We do this through providing robust connectivity services that create customer value and strong returns for our shareholders. The assessment of value creation is guided by the return profileof and outlook for the asset; applyinga best owner principle; and the strategic relevance of the asset to creating the required superior customer experience
and shareholder value.
We are pursuing shareholder value through in-market consolidations and investment in adjacent market opportunities where we see returns from synergies with our core business. In addition, we aim to unlock value by releasing asset classes or partner with 3rd parties where we see that Ooredoomay not be the best owner of the asset class.
Excellence in CustomerExperience
In increasingly competitive markets,ouraim is to create superiorcustomer experiences and inspiring moments forour customers, resulting in heightenedlevels of loyalty and higher spend.
We are focused on reducing customer effort and removing potential friction points, at the same time as establishing leading digital touchpoints that enable us to service customers where they want to find us online.We are assessing customer-related processes for simplicity, clarity and ease of access, and executing on an effective cost structure for servicing customers.
Strengthen Todays Core
We are continuing to accelerate the performance of our core business investing in our people, our networks and our services in order to win in the marketplace and maximize the return on our assets through a company-wide transformation programme. We are focused on creating an efficient and effective operation that makes best use of deployed capital, uses an appropriate cost structure and serves customers with a strong and competitiveservice offering.
Evolve Todays Core to Smart Telco
We are driving group-wide initiatives toenable us to future-proof our business, enhancing our capability to partner with third parties agilely across multiple operations; further digitizing our operations; and introducing attractive new services in the business-to- consumerand business-to-business sectors.
We are driving the adoption and use of analytics to better capture these benefits for enhanced customer service and improved efficiencies.
Growing Our People
We are advancing our ways of working by increasingly adopting agile methods, fostering cross-functional collaboration and creating opportunities to drive strong personal ownership in the outcomes. Coaching and mentoring are meant to underpin this in the daily work to help our people to grow with Ooredoo and to be able to contribute meaningfullyto our business.
These strategic pillarsare underpinned by critical capabilities:
- Our operating model
- Changes to our ways of working
- Our talent, and how we manage it
- Establishing effectivetransformationcapabilities
- Analytical skills
Recording Strong Results:
Our digital strategy and business transformation programme delivered solid results in 2021, driving revenue, customer and EBITDA growth. Revenue increased by 4% year-on-year to QAR 29.9 billion in 2021 (FY 2020: QAR 28.9 billion),with strong performances in our home market of Qatar, Indonesia and Tunisia. Excluding FX impact, revenueincreased by 7%. Group EBITDA was QAR 13.1 billion (FY 2020: QAR 12.1 billion), driven by growth in Indonesia, Kuwait and Algeria. The company maintained a healthy EBITDA margin 44% (FY 2020: 42%). Group Net Profit attributable to Ooredoo shareholders stood at QAR 46.9 million. The 96% reduction was mainly due to FX losses and the impairments in Myanmar. The negative impact was partly offset by profit from the sale and leaseback of Indosat Ooredoos tower assets (QAR 1 billion). Excluding these one-offs and FX impact, Net Profit had growth of 61%.
Our consolidated customerbase exceeded 121 million with strong performances in Indonesia, Oman, Algeria and Iraq in particular. Ooredoo Group maintains healthy cash reserves and liquidity levels. Free Cash Flow increased by 30% to reach QAR 8.2 billion.
Making the Most of our Assets
One of the important opportunities for Ooredoo moving forward is the shift towards an asset- light financial model that will unlock significant capital and sharpen our focus on delivering outstanding digitalservices to our customer base. We are prioritizing assets that will enable us
to deliver superior customer experience and shareholder value and reviewing opportunities to divest other non-core assets as appropriate. The successful sale and leaseback agreement with Edge Point Indonesia for more than 4,200 telecommunications towers is a key example of the returns that can be realised through this approach. One of the largest deals of its kind in Asia, with a valuation of USD 750 million, it was a key moment in 2021.
We have also adopted a proactive portfolio strategy to drive additional value across our markets. Building on the strength of our networks, and our 5G expertise in particular, we will be able to introduce an increasingly diverse range of services, partnering with third party developers across multipleoperations to bring the latestand best for consumers and businesses. We are also open to driving shareholder value through in-market consolidations, such as the merger of IndosatOoredoo and CK Hutchison that has createda stronger number two operator in the important Indonesian market.
Continuing to Deliverfor our Communities
Even as we grow and innovate, we have never lost sight of our responsibilities to the communities we serve.Our performance duringthe COVID-19 pandemicestablished a strong benchmark of trust with our customers, with a nationwide IPSOS survey naming Ooredoo as one of the top 10 companies helping to manage the coronavirus situation in Qatar. This work continued throughout 2021, expanding into our support for vaccination campaigns in Indonesia, Kuwait and Tunisia. It was also reflected in other relief work conducted by our operating companies, such as the speed in restoring network access and providing support in Oman following the devastating cyclone Shaheen and in Algeria following extensive forest wildfires.
We also continue to create opportunities for growth and development for the next generation of talent. The appointments of Bassam Yousef Al Ibrahim as CEO of Ooredoo Algeria and Noor Al Sulaiti as the first-ever female CEO of Ooredoo Oman this year provided another indicator that Ooredoo is committed to finding and promoting the strongest candidates across the markets we serve. PrudentManagement and FinancialStability Institutional confidence in Ooredoos strategy and performance was demonstrated by the success of Ooredoos USD 1 billion bond issuance in April 2021. This was Ooredoos first issuance in five years and the market response was extremely gratifying.
Ooredoo is committed to the highest standards of environmental protection, socialimpact andgoodgovernance, looking tobuildasustainablelegacyforall. Ooredoo is committed to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which aim to eradicate extreme poverty, fight inequalities and injustice and fix climatechange.While our impactrelates to many of the goals, our approach is focused on the below three objectives and related targets.
We are guided by a visionof using our services to enrich peoples lives and foster human growth as a community-focused enterprise. We believe that mobile technology, particularly mobile broadband, has the potential to drive social and economic change and improvements. Thus, we harnessthe power of our businessto contribute to human welfare by cultivating digital opportunities.
Digital Opportunities
We are continually working to improve our networks speed, connectivity and coverage, making it more accessible even in the most isolatedlocations and future-fitting it to meet our customers expanding digital needs. The COVID-19 pandemic has undoubtedly accelerated digital transformation, necessitating the need for businesses to respond. While focusing on meeting our clients growing expectations, we were also adaptable and agile in reactingto the global agenda. We are one of the first companies in the world to launch a 5G network, which was rolled out in Qatar in May 2018. Today, we cover more than 99% of the Qatari population with our live 5G sites in Qatar. In addition, we are in the process of deploying 5G networks in Kuwait, Maldives, Oman and Indonesia with other markets to follow.
We enter 2022 more united, more focused and more ambitious than ever before to build a world-class data experience for our customers. Our digital transformation journey continues and, together, we will scale even greater heights. One of the important opportunities for Ooredoo moving forward is the shift towards an asset-light financial model that will unlock significant capital and sharpen our focus on delivering outstanding digital services to our customer base.
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