Asiacell Iraq, the second-largest mobile phone operator in the country, has returned to profit-ability under its new owner, according to Nasser Marafih, chairman of its parent group Qtel.

The profits will be announced at Qtel’s annual financial results presentation at the end of February.

The change in the mobile phone operator’s fortunes comes after eight months of upheaval, which ended when Qtel bought a 30 per cent stake in Asiacell for $159m on 15 August 2007.

Asiacell’s majority shareholders, a group of Kurdish businessmen headed by entrepreneur Faruk Rasool, took the company into voluntary liquidation at the beginning of 2007 after a disagreement with the other shareholder, Kuwaiti telecoms operator Wataniya (MEED 16:11:07).

The Iraqi operator was in liquidation between January and August 2007 as the liquidator looked to sell the assets to the highest bidder.

Asiacell made a net profit of KD49.7m ($182.3m) in 2006 on revenues of KD104.9m. In 2005, it made a loss of KD7m on revenues of KD61m.

The company’s long-term future was only settled on 17 August, when it won a 15-year licence to operate a mobile phone network in Iraq for $1.25bn.

The other two licences were won by MTC-Atheer, which has since been rebranded as Zain, and Korek Telecom, a Kurdish operator, for the same amount of money.

Asiacell has never presented an audited set of accounts and Qtel declined to say when accountants would be able to audit the company.

“Qtel is actively working with its partners to enhance the reporting and accounting process in Asiacell to facilitate provision of audited accounts as soon as practical, taking into account the situation in Iraq,” says Marafih.

Iraq is one of the fastest growing telecoms markets in the Middle East. Asiacell’s customer base grew by 46 per cent over the year to the end of September 2007, to 3.7 million from 2.5 million.

However, Zain, the market leader in Iraq, has done much better, with its customer numbers increasing to 7.1 million at the end of 2007 from 3.2 million at the end of 2006, after acquiring the assets of Iraqna, Orascom Telecom’s Iraqi subsidiary, on 1 January 2008.

Zain’s Iraq business made a net profit of $32.7m in the third quarter of 2007.

Qtel’s Omani subsidiary, Nawras, has also become profi-table for the first time, producing an operating profit of QR149.9m ($41.2m) in the nine months to 30 September 2007.

Nawras signed up its 1 millionth customer in January, less than three years after launching in Oman in March 2005.

Asiacell will disclose the financial performance of its operations in all 10 countries when it presents its results in February.