Batelco

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This article is about the company in Bahrain. For the unrelated company in the Bahamas, see BaTelCo (Bahamas).

The Batelco logo

Bahrain Telecommunications - (Batelco) - is the principal telecommunications company of Bahrain. The company is headquartered in Bahrain and is listed on the Bahrain Stock Exchange. In 2008, it posted profits of US$269.2 million (BD101.5m) on a revenue of US$777.4m (BD293.1m)^[1].

1 Ownership
2 Operations
3 Employees
- 3.1 Subsidiary companies
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Ownership

Batelco was established in 1981 as a Bahraini shareholding company and has an authorized share capital of BD100 million (US$265 million). Batelco's major shareholders include the Government of Bahrain, Quasi-government institutions, financial and commercial organizations, and private Bahraini and GCC investors. These parties together hold 80% of Batelco, while Cable and Wireless holds the remaining 20%.

[edit] Operations

Despite the full liberalization of Bahrain’s telecommunications market by the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA), Batelco is still the monopoly operator for fixed, Internet and data services in the country.

Batelco, through its holding company (Batelco Middle East EC (BMEC)) in Bahrain, has set up a number of communications partner companies acting as a spearhead for Cable and Wireless's global data communications strategy. These communications partner companies are found in several key areas of the region including Kuwait, Jordan, and Egypt. However, such expansion is not unifrom, with Batelco selling its 50% share of the datacomm provider Batelco Al-Jeraisy (Atheer) in Saudi Arabia during the last quarter of 2004.

Batelco allocated an amount of BD 42 million (US$ 111.3 million) for capital ‎expenditure on network development and enhancement during the year 2002 to prepare ‎for the migration to packet switching and ATM ‎technologies to support multimedia services. In June 2004, Batelco announced a ‎further investment of BD 9 million (US$ 23.85 million) in the mobile network to expand ‎its capacity to 550,000 lines. another expansion was done to lift the network capacity to ‎‎650,000 lines in 2005 followed by an expansion to 750,000 lines in 2007, the network ‎currently has over 730,000 subscribers in Bahrain compared to 360,000 with its Mobile ‎Competitor Zain.‎

[edit] Employees

Batelco employs around 1,500 people, of which 95% are Bahraini nationals. The operator spent nearly BD1.5 million (US$3.98 million) during 2003 in training its staff.

[edit] Subsidiary companies

As well as being Bahrain's principal telecom operator, the company serves customers in Jordan, Kuwait, Yemen,Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

Subsidiaries

Jordan - Umniah Mobile Communications and Batelco Jordan
Kuwait - Qualitynet
Egypt - Batelco Egypt Communications SAE
Pan-Arabian - Arabian Network Information Services - (anis) - is a pan-Arabian internet service provider.
Yemen - Sabafone ( Batelco owns 20% of Yemen Leading Telecoms Company)
K.S.A - Atheeb/Batelco (Batelco owns 15% of the New Landline & WiMAX Company in Saudi Arabia)