The national telecoms provider made a net profit of 29 million rials ($75.32 million) for the three months ended June 30, compared with 28.6 million rials a year-ago, it said in a statement.
The results however beat an average of analysts polled by Reuters which forecast second-quarter net profit of 24.5 million rials.
Net profit for the first half was 55 million rials against 61 million rials for the same period in 2010.
Total expenses rose by 9.4 percent to 164 million rials from 149.9 rials for the first half of the year, the company said.
“Successful employment of 200 new employees approved by Board of Directors in response to the Royal Directives and the improvement of employee benefits were the second major driver of the increase in expenses,” the statement said.
Omantel’s monopoly in the state was broken by Nawras, a unit of Qatar Telecommunications Co. and the company faces increasing competition from mobile virtual network operators.
Since then, about half a dozen companies are have been granted licenses to operate mobile virtual networks.
The government owns 70 percent of Omantel.
Omantel shares rose 0.5 percent on the Muscat bourse Monday. They have lost about 19 percent of their value year-to-date.
