John Tombleson, finance director of Vodafone Qatar has said the firm had more than doubled its customer base in the last quarter, but increased operational costs had led to a nine-month operating loss of QR497m, Reuters has reported. The company's number of customers stood at 353,580 customers as of December 31, representing 22% of the Gulf state's population. 'All our financial results and key performance indicators are in line or ahead of our annual plan which is the first year outlined in our IPO prospectus,' Tombleson said in a statement.