Saudi Telecom Co (STC), the Arab world's largest telecom company by market value, posted a worse-than-expected 62 percent fall in fourth-quarter profit, blaming it on foreign currency fluctuations. STC made SR1.17 billion ($311 million) in the three months to Dec. 31, down from the SR3.06 billion it made a year earlier, the state-controlled firm said in a statement posted on the bourse website. “The drop in the fourth-quarter net profit ... stemmed from currency differentials in the company's investments abroad,” it said. It estimated the cost of currency fluctuations at SR2 billion. STC spent about $3.5 billion in 2008 to buy a 35 percent stake in Oger Telecom and a 26 percent stake in a consortium that won a third mobile phone license in Kuwait. The expansion helped STC post a 24 percent rise in second-quarter net profit, while it was struggling to show any growth at all just a year earlier. STC's Chairman Mohammed Al-Jasser could not immediately be reached for comment.
