150 mobile subscriptions for every 100 people in Bahrain
For every 100 people in Bahrain, there were 150 mobile subscriptions by the second quarter of last year, as the telecoms watchdog posted a BD15.4 million surplus and transferred nearly BD16m to the Finance Ministry.
Mobile subscriptions reached 2.387m, up 2pc from the end of 2024, while broadband subscriptions stood at 2.595m, or 163 for every 100 people.
Audited accounts for the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority show its surplus slipped 3.4pc from BD15.946m in 2024 to BD15.402m last year.
The authority also transferred about BD15.95m to the Ministry of Finance and National Economy.
Operating revenue barely changed at BD21.156m, while costs rose 7.5pc to BD7.125m, cutting the operating surplus to BD14.031m.
Annual telecoms licence fees remained the authority’s biggest source of revenue at BD8.433m, or 39.9pc of operating income.
Spectrum availability fees brought in BD5.289m, while frequency and spectrum-band charges fell 7.5pc to BD3.541m.
Together, those three sources accounted for 81.6pc of operating revenue.
Staff costs remained the largest expense at BD4.023m.
Consultancy and legal costs rose 25.5pc to BD738,000, while the authority made a BD568,000 provision for doubtful debts. No such charge was recorded in 2024.
The provision explains much of the BD500,000 rise in operating expenses.
Non-operating income fell 2.3pc to BD1.371m, including BD1.254m from changes in the fair value of investments.
Investments rose 28.2pc from BD22.173m to BD28.427m, even as total assets fell 9.7pc to BD37.483m.
Total liabilities fell 13.6pc to BD22.081m, with deferred revenue accounting for BD20.807m of the total.
Fibre subscriptions stood at about 182,000, equal to 63pc of households, while 86pc of fibre customers were on packages offering speeds of at least 100 megabits per second.
Broadband data use reached 1.971 billion gigabytes in 2024, with fixed-network use up 7pc and mobile data use up 15pc.
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