00:00So listen, I'm sure it's been a very complicated couple of months for anybody running any business in the Emirates.
00:06Give us an overview of what we saw here in the second quarter.
00:11Good morning, Oliver. Look, do has an excellent set of numbers, as you have highlighted in the in the first
00:20half of 2026,
00:23despite a quite complicated, volatile macro environment and regional environment.
00:30Revenues at 8.2 billion, 5.8 percent growth year over year.
00:35I did that 4 billion, 10.5 percent growth year over year.
00:39And I think I'm at 1.6 billion, 12.6 percent year over year.
00:45The board approved an interim dividend of 26 fills, which is a growth of 8.3 percent compared to the
00:54interim dividend of last year.
00:56So this shows how defensive is the industry, how is effective our operating model that allowed us to show the
01:05set of numbers in the environment that we were talking about.
01:10Yeah. And so as you mentioned, the environment, they're a challenging environment, which you make reference to a couple of
01:15times in your earnings report.
01:17You also make reference to the fact that growth moderation from prior periods has been moderating in terms of the
01:22growth rate, still a growth rate, but one that has moderated.
01:25Giving access, as you do, to the sort of information about people that are coming, potentially getting SIM cards.
01:31What do your numbers in the last quarter tell us about the volume of people coming into the Emirates, specifically
01:37on tourism?
01:39Yes, definitely. I mean, we've seen, we've seen in the number, our base, our prepaid base in particularly, we saw
01:47a moderation of the growth that is fundamentally driven by the reduction of the tourism activity in the country.
01:56However, on the other side, our postpaid base, our postpaid base, our postpaid base, hold strong with a 9 percent
02:03growth year over year.
02:04And our fixed base also has been growing at 5.5 percent year over year, and this sustained an excellent
02:14level of revenues, of revenue growth in the fixed at 11.6 percent and also in the in the prepaid
02:21base.
02:21So we see a little bit of disconnection on one side, the long term contract, the ones that are taken
02:28by the resident are holding up while we're seeing a moderation, as I highlighted in the in the in the
02:35part that is affected by tourist activity.
02:38And the word of the day seems to be capex. That's what we heard from alphabet earnings, spending a lot
02:43of money, the same with Tesla.
02:44And of course, building out all that AI infrastructure and data centers is absolutely paramount, not just for them, but
02:50of course, also for you.
02:51How does this sort of conflict, does it change anything in terms of your outlook, in terms of spending on
02:56the projects that you're focusing on, particularly on the data centers?
03:01Look, the short answer is no.
03:04We've been maintaining our CAPEX plans, both when we talk about CAPEX related to our network and also into what
03:13we call beyond the core, which is fundamentally the data center.
03:17So we've been driving as per our plan and we even accelerated the deployment in the data center to cope
03:26with certain commitment that we have vis-Ã -vis of our partners to deliver certain blocks of data center capacity
03:32at the end of the of the year.
03:34What we're doing, however, is we're monitoring carefully the evolution of the situation and we will adapt when it comes
03:42to the deployment.
03:43But we believe that as of today, we're deploying as per plan.
03:49I think also the strong balance sheet of due is an important factor that is allowing us to maintain all
03:58our plans, while at the same time serving to our shareholders a very healthy and generous return.
04:05And we're speaking this morning as we see the possibility of a further escalation in the war, this time on
04:11the side of the Red Sea.
04:12We've heard from the Houthis in the past talking about potentially cutting undersea cables that carry fiber optics.
04:18Is that something that you, sort of on your risk radar, how do you insulate from that kind of risk?
04:22What kind of effect would that have?
04:25We, I mean, as you can imagine, for an infrastructure that is as important as the telecom that we're operating,
04:31we do have several alternatives and several recovery systems that will allow us to operate and redirect the traffic to
04:44cope with the various situations, including the one that you're talking about.
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