Hello, and welcome to Ooredoo's Q3 results call. It's good to be here again, and at this time, although we are not in the same room, at least we are all in the same building from the Ooredoo headquarters in Doha. Let me start by introducing my colleagues. You're familiar with Aziz, our Managing Director. We also have Sheikh Mohammed, CEO of Ooredoo Qatar. Abdullah Zaman is traveling at the moment, but our Treasurer, George Challenor, is covering for him. We're also joined by René Werner, head of our strategy. From the Investor Relations team, we got Sarah Al-Sayed on the call. You've got all the information in the deck. The bios of the speakers are there.
Aziz will start with the presentation, the consolidated results, and he will also give you a summary of the recently announced proposed merger in Indonesia. We're gonna go into the OpCo results. Sheikh Mohammed will cover the first half, and then George is gonna cover the second half of the OpCos, and we will allow ample time for your questions. The presentation is available on our website. This session is actually being recorded, and the transcription also has started, and by attending this meeting, you consent to be included here. Please do note the usual disclaimer on slide number two. To begin, I now hand over to Aziz. Aziz, you're on mute.
Good morning, everyone. I'm happy to have you, and I'm especially happy to announce that we're continuing the trend of the year with very solid performance, even though we had challenging conditions. Our revenue ended up at QAR 22 billion. This is up 3% compared to the same period last year. Our group EBITDA grew to QAR 10 billion, which is a margin of 45%. This is a growth rate of 7%. If you look at our revenue and you remove FX impacts, actually our revenue grew by 6%, and in the same way, our EBITDA grew by 10%. On the net profit, we were impacted by mainly FX losses on one side and a one-off impairment of our operation in Myanmar.
This was partially offset by the sale and leaseback transaction we've done earlier this year in Indonesia of our towers, and that was roughly proceeds of QAR 1 billion. Excluding all these one-off, our net profit actually increased by 41%. Our consolidated customers carried on increasing. We're now exceeding 120 million subscribers. That's an increase of 2%. Of course, we'll touch at the end, we've announced a transformative transaction, which is the merger between Ooredoo Group, Indosat operation, and CK Hutchison Indonesia's operation. Can we move to the next slide, please? As I previously said, our revenue grew by 3% for the first nine months, and it's 4% for quarter three of this year, jumping from seven...
Close to QAR 7.3 billion-QAR 7.6 billion for Q3. EBITDA has grown by 7% for the first nine months, jumping from QAR 9.248 billion to QAR 9.9 billion, and it's a 6% jump in just the third quarter alone. This growth in revenue is mainly driven by the strong performance in Qatar, Indonesia, and Tunisia, and the EBITDA is driven by most of the operation, but also strong performance in Indonesia, Kuwait, and Algeria. Next slide, please. The net profit of the group, as we said, we are for the first time actually reporting for the first nine months a loss of QAR 760 million. This is due to the impairment of Myanmar and FX losses.
The negative impact was partially offset by the profit of the sale and leaseback of Indosat Ooredoo's tower asset of QAR 1 billion and reversal of a COVID FX provision. If we exclude these one-off, what you can see is that for the first nine months, our normalized profit has actually jumped by 41%, and our Q3 profit alone has jumped by 28%. Next slide, please. CapEx is in line with our guidance, and we're slightly below our last year. Our CapEx dropped by 12% compared to the first nine months of last year and by 20% for Q3. If you combine that with also the very strong top-line growth and EBITDA growth, what you're seeing is very strong free cash flow growth.
Our free cash flow for the first nine months grew by 18%, and Q3 alone grew by 24%. Just one comment here. We've simplified the definition of free cash flows to align it with the rest of the industry. It's a very simple definition. It's EBITDA minus tangible CapEx. As I mentioned, total customer growth has grown by 2%. We're for the first time exceeding 120 million subscribers. The growth mainly came from Indonesia, Oman, Algeria, and Iraq. In line with the guidance of our board, we're continuing to reduce our net debt profile. Our net debt is actually at the bottom of the range of our board guidance, which was between 2.5 times and 1.5 times.
It currently stands at 1.5x net debt to EBITDA and well below the bank covenant of 4x. As you can see, our nine-month revenue and EBITDA are both exceeding our guidance. We maintain the full year guidance as it is. Which is revenue growing between -3% to +1%, EBITDA -3% to +1%, and CapEx from QAR 5 billion to QAR 6 billion. This is a conservative approach, taking into account that we still are aware of threats of COVID-19 for the last quarter. Now, this is a transaction that we announced a month ago, and it's a transformative transaction. It's the merger of Indosat Ooredoo with CK Hutchison. This will create a pre-synergy enterprise value of $6 billion.
The total customer base, if you look at the combined customer base of both entity, would jump from close to 60 million all the way to close to 80 million subscribers for the combined group. This merger will be beneficial for all stakeholders, from our customers to our shareholders and then our shareholder in Indonesia, shareholders at the group. It will also be beneficial for the Indonesian market as it is. As you know, the Indonesian market is highly fragmented. Today, there are five operators operating in Indonesia, the incumbent having 43% market share. The remaining players number two with 17% and then on. The combined entity will rationalize the market and should put us at a RMS of close to 25%. Next slide, please. The combination will create a lot of value for our shareholders.
We're looking at run rate synergies of close to $300 million-$400 million. A bulk of the synergies are coming from the network rationalization. We currently estimate close to 25%-30% of the combined footprint of the network to be decommissioned because of the duplication. Also, there'll be strong synergies from more efficient use of our combined spectrum, optimization also in duplicated infrastructure, transmission, as well as the IT stack. We also see a lot of synergies from the non-network side. Both have very strong complementary brands. We address different segments. We'll leverage the best practices of both entities, and the increase in the scale of the footprint of both entities will give us a lot of depth in the market. Of course, the normal SG&A optimization. The surviving entity will be called Indosat Ooredoo Hutchison.
As you know, in this transaction, we are going through a joint control model. This is a merger where we will be renouncing consolidation. We will both be controlling the entity. The government will still retain 9.6% shareholding, and other public shareholders will hold approximately 14%. New shareholders will ensure both the strong backing of CK Hutchison and Ooredoo, which will ensure that the combined entity has very strong backing from two very big telco operators around the world. This will give a long-term strength to the entity. We estimate that this will create very strong positive cash flows for Indosat going forward. As you know, we were the dominant shareholder to achieve joint control.
CK Hutchison will acquire 17% of our share for an equalization payment of $387 million. We're currently going through the regulatory approval. All existing shareholders of Indosat as of today will receive dividends of the tower sale achieved in May. That's a total consideration of $750 million. As OG shareholder, the group will still retain 65% of this dividend. As you know, through Indonesian law, dissenting shareholder will be bought out by the MergeCo. The set price of the buyout is 5,200 IDR. Just to put this in perspective, as of today, the share price of Indosat is trading above 7,000 IDR. With this next slide, I hand off to Sheikh Mohammed.
Thank you, Aziz. We can start with Qatar. Following what our MD is saying and for the growth of group, Qatar as a home market, the group one of the major contributor to the top line. Still a leading operator in terms of number one for the fixed and mobile market. The revenue grew, if we look at the market of Qatar, the market has grown by 4% YTD year-on-year, and we have seen that growth to have grown by 3% with which contributing also to a very healthy margin, EBITDA margin of 54%. Ooredoo Qatar, part of our digital strategy that embedded also with the group strategy, we have partnered recently with Quest, and we have our own sports gaming and called Oo redoo Nation.
We are very proud of announcing the title sponsor for the F1. First time ever happened in Qatar. Ooredoo Qatar also was recognized as Microsoft Partner of the Year and also with MoneyGram as a Partner of the Decade. Moving to Indonesia. Indonesia is still continuing their momentum, delivering a strong growth. 14% increase in the revenue. EBITDA increase by 23%, amounting to QAR 2.9 billion. Healthy customer base growing by 3%. 5G commercially launched in Surabaya, Solo, and Jakarta. Proposed, as mentioned by our MD, the merger between Indosat Ooredoo and Hutchison, it's creating more synergy and having, you know, a number two player in the market and rationalizing the market as well.
Potential dividend payment and proceeds, as our MD mentioned, consolidation of proceeds of tower sale of $750 million. Moving to Oman. Oman market is still suffering from the COVID-19 restrictions. We have seen also a macroeconomic affecting the operator there. We have seen the revenue decline 8% y ear-on-year. Also, that's attributed to consumer mobile prepaid offset partially by a postpaid revenue growth, which is our strategy there in Ooredoo Oman, is migration of pre to post. EBITDA decreased by 12%, but still Oman perceived as a healthier or a healthy OpCo that we have within the group. Customer base increased to 2.8 million, up by 6%.
Unfortunately, in October, the whole country hit by tropical Cyclone Shaheen, which impacted our network and our teams worked day and night to recover. It was within a record time to recover all these outages and also impact on sites that we had in that tropical Cyclone Shaheen. Moving to Kuwait. Kuwait is picking up and we have seen the macroeconomy is softening as well as there is a lot of relaxation in the COVID-19 restrictions in the country. There is a slight increase in revenue by 1%. EBITDA margin has been improving significantly with being thankful also to Kuwait management for their initiative in cost optimization. Still the investment going there for latest technology that we are providing to our customers with 5G.
It has been a continual commitment also from Ooredoo Kuwait, providing the business class technology and also providing a sophisticated digital products called ANA, which we are very proud to announce and also partnering with big entities like NBK and also other entities that we are proud to be partnering and having our digital services combined with that. Also very proud to launch a successful event of iPhone being, you know, sole partnering with Apple. It has been a good achievement of from a sales and also bundling our our commitment and packages that we're providing to our customer. Having said that, I will hand it over to my colleague, George. George, over to you. You are on mute.
Thank you, Sheikh Mohammed, and a warm hello to all our listeners on the call today. Turning to Iraq, we have a strong recovery performance in Iraq operations in the third quarter. The Iraq economy has been impacted by the twin effects of a 20% devaluation in the Iraqi dinar and the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although flat in Qatari riyal terms, in local currency terms, there is a much stronger performance. Revenue is up 12%. EBITDA improved by 16%, and the EBITDA margin grew one percentage point to 46%. With extending 4G coverage and switching 4G customers, the customer base grew 7% to 15.2 million subscribers.
I will also note that the last quarter rebound of 24% in revenue and 27% in EBITDA growth. Turning to the next slide, Algeria. Our Algeria operations are also showing signs of recovery with the local economy, despite a 7% depreciation in the Algerian dinar. While flat in QAR terms at QAR 1.7 billion, revenues are up 8% in local currency terms. EBITDA increased by 6% in QAR terms, with efficiency improvements yielding two percentage points of EBITDA margin growth to 36%. The customer base also grew by 3%. Algeria launched a YOOZ app, a new optimized version in Q2 this year. The YOOZ is a prepaid offering digital app targeting the youth of Algeria, and helps them personalize their data plans and access to digital content.
Ooredoo's another noteworthy point is that Ooredoo Algeria's network remained very robust despite some forest fires. The company offered initiatives to support local associations in areas impacted by forest fires. Next slide. Ooredoo Tunisia is another operation showing good recovery, delivered robust results despite an increase in the number of COVID-19 cases, with revenue of QAR 1.2 billion for the nine months ended September, an increase of 8% compared to the same period last year. EBITDA was QAR 511 million, up 3% compared to the same period last year. Streamlining its operations through digitization, the EBITDA picked up one percentage point to 43% margin in Q3. Note, each quarter is up sequentially in 2021.
Ooredoo Tunisia also changed the reporting of their customer base to a 90 days network activity definition, but it is worth noting that on a like-for-like comparison, the customer numbers have increased by 12% year-on-year. Next slide, please. In Myanmar operations have been challenging. The authorities had proclaimed a one-year state of emergency in February of this year, which significantly impacted the company's revenues. Revenues reported an 8% decline to QAR 799 million, impacted by a strong currency depreciation. There was a slight easing of the data restrictions and a reinstatement of a pricing floor by the regulator, which helped improve business in Q3. A 24% increase in EBITDA to QAR 244 million was partly assisted by lower cost of sales.
The customer base increased by 2% to 13.3 million year-on-year. The company launched a new game, Umangi, on the My Ooredoo app, which has been played over 25 million times since its launch, and this has contributed to My Ooredoo app revenue. I will close by saying that in local currency terms, while there has been a strong Q3 recovery in margins, conditions remain difficult to manage in Myanmar. That concludes the slides on operations, and I hand back to Andreas to wrap up.
Great. Thank you very much, George. Before we move to the Q&A part, I would like to take the opportunity to thank all the investors and analysts who voted for Ooredoo at the recent Middle Eastern Investor Relations Conference. We were the double winners of the Qatari IR Awards. On behalf of Sarah and myself, we appreciate the vote and the support there. We always welcome your feedback, and we take that very seriously. For example, our dividend policy was also strongly encouraged by the feedback that we got from our shareholders. Please keep on sharing your feedback, positive and negative. We are always open for your suggestions. Now we come to the Q&A part.
I encourage you to raise your hand on Zoom or just type your question in the Q&A section, and I see the first questions already in there. If you're dialing in from a phone, just push star nine, and then we can open up the line for you. I hand over to Sarah now, who can start reading out the first questions.
Thank you, Andreas. First question: Could you please provide some color about the competitive landscape in Qatar?
Sure. The market in Qatar has been quite.
[crosstalk]
Can you hear me?
Yes, we can hear you.
I look at that way. The market in Qatar has been quite healthy compared to 2020. If you see the YTD market growth is around 4%. We have seen also both operators are rationalizing and gaining, you know, a value from, thanks to their revamped summer products and we have seen also talking about Ooredoo as a leading operator. We have seen a major contribution from a B2B segments, or B2B, and also thanks to our strategy of pre to post migration, where we have seen a significant or visible growth in our postpaid customers. If in a nutshell, we have seen a healthy market growth, and we have seen both operators are growing and taking a fair share into that growth.
Thank you, Sheikh Mohammed. Another question is about Iraq. What is the reason for the revenue increase of 20% in Iraq, Q3 versus Q2?
Do you want me to take it? In Iraq, thanks to our also 4G launch and, we successfully launched our 4G beginning of the year. I hear some echo, guys.
Sorry.
Thanks to also our migration from 3G to 4G and to our team who work hard on revamping our products and monetizing the 4G investment. We have seen from beginning of the launch a lot of successful and smart movement to our team. Also migration from prepaid to postpaid and also having a portfolio of products for the last three months in summer for a high value segment. That's the reason we have seen a good pickup on the data 4G traffic, as well as represented or translated into a value by a smart revamp products that have been launched in the last four months.
Thank you, Sheikh. Question for Nishat. Okay. Again, a significant impact from Myanmar on the Forex side. What is the current dollar outstanding from Myanmar? And is the entity in a position to clear the shareholder loan? And was any part of this loan impaired recently?
I'll take a high level start, and then I'll let George carry on. On Myanmar, the situation is quite difficult to operate on the ground. Plus, there are foreign currency effects, and the depth of the market in Myanmar is quite shallow in terms of US dollars. We are working extremely hard with all our vendors and providers to convert all our contracts back to local currency. As in local currency, we're performing relatively okay. In terms of their impairment, we fully impaired the operation, as you know. That was a total impairment of north of $750 million last quarter. George, if you want to add any further color.
Well, a big large part of the exposure in Myanmar is to do with leases and vendor payables. Obviously, those remain in place and are part of the efforts we are making to try and reduce the costs to look to see if we can make the business more sustainable.
Thank you, Aziz and George. Again, a question from Nishat. What is affecting operations in Maldives in 2022 versus 2020? Is it a competitive pressure? I'm not sure what that seems to be doing fine in 2021. Question regarding Maldives. George. Okay.
Can you hear me? Ooredoo Maldives is obviously affected by tourism. I would say that remember that Dhiraagu has a lot of government-related business which gives them greater stability for their operations through this time. Whereas Ooredoo Maldives is somewhat dependent on the recovery, which we're seeing in the tourism and the roaming revenue starting to come back. Does that answer the question?
Yes. Another question from Nishat. More color on this continuous drag from impairment of financial assets regarding Maldives. He wants more color on this continuous drag from impairment of financial assets.
George, you're on mute.
I'm not actually aware of the impairment you're referring to. I'd have to come back to you afterwards on that.
Thank you, George.
Actually, if I can add on the impairments, this actually represents the normal provision for receivables and other balances. There was a small increase during the quarter. However, year-to-year, actually, the numbers for 2021 are lower than 2022.
Okay. Thank you, Andreas. Also Nishat, joint control of Indonesian operations. How will this work in terms of two different culture and management styles?
I'll take this one. We've worked, as you know, initially when we signed the MOU with CK Hutchison, we were targeting a close, sometime in June. It actually took three months more, and a big part of that extension was to actually fine-tune the governance part of our merger. We actually found a model where we believe that a joint control is the best way to align both major shareholders into delivering the synergies, as a lot of the synergies come from both operations. We've retained and appointed key managements together, each time selecting the best candidates out of both entities. We actually don't believe that the culture and the management style is that different.
There are some differences, but at the same time, we have very similar objective for Indonesia, and we believe that by bringing the expertise of both operations to Indosat, it will actually benefit their operations.
Thank you, Aziz. Afif is asking any efforts or risk mitigation that has been taken in countries like Myanmar?
It's very difficult to mitigate risks in a country and situation like Myanmar, but obviously careful cost control, slowing down, outlays as much as possible only to bare essentials is about the limit of what you can do in that situation.
Again, for Myanmar, EBITDA margins improvements in Myanmar to 41% in Q3 2021. What drove it, and is it sustainable?
George, you're taking it or I'm taking it?
Sure. I can take it, Aziz. The key element of that was lifting restrictions on the data network to allow customers to continue to use the network. Obviously growth of customers on our network and. Yeah, I think that's lifting those restrictions and obviously the price floor being reestablished so that there was a limit to the competitive damage to the pricing in the market was a substantial factor.
Thank you, George. A question regarding FIFA games. What impact does management expect from FIFA games in 2022? Is there an overall group guidance for 2022? Can you also kindly provide some comments on expected dividend for 2021?
We are very excited about, you know, having FIFA World Cup. We as Ooredoo, we're very proud being also the technology partner and providing a full infrastructure for the stadium that's hosting the event. We are quite optimistic and looking into this event because that would impact an increase on traffic and for the roaming, and that's something we are very excited to see influx people and fans coming over, which will have a boost into our economy as a country and then will affect also the industry itself. From a perspective of the dividends, we always aim to keep with the policy that we are having from 40%-60% of the normalized earning.
Thank you, Sheikh Hamad. How much gain will be recognized on Ooredoo Group P&L due to the Indosat deal?
Ooredoo's P&L and then with Indosat deal is affected by quite a few things. One is first the proceeds from the sale and leaseback of the towers. That's one where only existing shareholders of Indosat as of today will get the proceeds of that transaction. The second is Ooredoo Group shareholder will get the benefit from $387 million equalization payment for the sale of 17% in the HoldCo. Last, over time, Ooredoo Group's P&L, actually, as you know, Indosat will no more be consolidated. It will be recognized as a joint venture. There won't be any more impact at the top line. It won't be recognized in the top line, won't be recognized at the EBITDA level, but it will be recognized in the net profit as a contribution to net profit.
As I mentioned earlier, we expect to drive close to $300 million-$400 million run rate annual synergies through this transaction. We expect quite a significant uplift in the next two to 3 years out of this deal to Ooredoo's P&L.
A question from Raman. Could you please shed some light on the strength in Tunisia? It has been a difficult market, but lately the recovery seems steady. Do you expect this to continue?
In Tunis, we have seen a good relaxation of the COVID-19 restrictions, and that's affected also positively the performance of the company. Also, we have seen some turbulence from a political side, but also that dropped some traffic among the customers. And that's what we have seen evident for the last couple of months. These two factors, I would attribute to some recovery that seem to be seen within Tunisian markets.
Thank you, Sheikh. A question from Faisal Al Zaabi. How are the proceeds from the tower sale and merger deal going to be used?
We currently haven't identified full use of proceeds. As you know, the use of proceeds will also be subject to the board approval. A big part of the proceeds, some part of the proceeds, of course, is to be invested in the core of our operations continued growth. Other is to continue on our strategy in slightly ancillary business like mobile money and other operations. The reuse of proceeds will have to be approved by the board.
Thank you, Aziz. A question for Iraq. Could you please be more specific on the quarterly revenue increase in Iraq? Was the entire 24% revenue increase versus Q2 driven by 4G data revenues, or were there any one-offs, one-time factors?
In Iraq, as mentioned, for the last three-four months, that's where we have seen the impact of a very smart move from our team there for the premium product for the high value segment, and that's driven by 4G traffic. Also, I would attribute other factors is, as we going forward, the relaxation of the COVID-19 have been there, and that's also bringing a positive move through driving the value for the company. On top of that, we see also there is some seasonality within Q2 as summer and Ramadan, and that's also helping you see that growth of Q3 over Q2.
Thank you, Sheikh. Ziad is asking, did you get the regulatory approval for Indosat merger? What are the remaining steps requirements? When do you expect closure of this transaction?
We're currently going through the different regulatory approval. Actually, it's going quite well. We're very confident because the process is going quite well. The major step is all regulatory approval. We also require an EGM approval, so approval from current existing shareholders and minorities in Indosat. We have announced that we're targeting to close before the end of the year. At the same time, we have in the agreement with Hutch built room all the way to Q1 next year.
A question on Iraq also. What was the impact of settling a financial dispute, especially on revenues this quarter?
We are still in that case in Iraq, and we will provide the needed information through course channel.
Ziad asking about damage in Oman. What was the extent of damage in Oman in U.S. dollar terms from Cyclone Shaheen? Can we expect Q4 impairments one-off losses?
In Oman, it's really the country hit badly by the tropical cyclone. We have recovered heavily on the outages and also the cut in power and sites, but also in terms of the Q4 impairment, that's something we are still investigating and looking into any financial impact. That's something will be provided in Q4 results and review inshallah.
Also from Ziad, what is the next top three markets where you are working on passive infrastructure after Indonesia?
As you know, monetizing our InfraCo assets is a key priority. We're actually not focusing on three countries. We're focusing actually on seven countries simultaneously, the three GCC operations plus Iraq, Tunisia and Algeria. This is the bulk of our TowerCo tower assets. We have close to 22,000 towers remaining in that portfolio. We're currently actively reviewing our portfolio to see the best monetization options.
Again, from Ziad, what is the size of the payables on Myanmar balance sheet?
Payables. The vendor payables are around $80 million.
Thank you, George. No further questions.
Do we have anybody raising their hand? I can't see that on my screen at the moment, Jessica.
Nothing.
I would like to thank you all for your participation in the call. For any follow-up questions, feel free to reach out to the Investor Relations anytime, and we will see you again at our full-year results call probably sometime around middle of February. This concludes our call. Thank you.