e&, the UAE’s largest telecommunications and technology group, reported consolidated revenue of AED 38.1 billion for the first half of 2026, an 11.6 per cent increase year on year. EBITDA reached AED 17.7 billion, up 13.1 per cent, with a margin of 46.5 per cent. Net profit reached AED 6 billion. The board approved an interim dividend of 47.5 fils per share, 10.5 per cent higher than the same period last year. These are strong financial results by any measure, but the more interesting story about e& in H1 2026 is not the revenue line. It is what the company is doing with its position: selling legacy assets at premium valuations, reinvesting the proceeds into AI and digital infrastructure, and executing a portfolio transformation that is repositioning one of the Gulf’s oldest telecoms businesses as a 21st-century technology group.
The subscriber base tells part of the story. e& now has 251.5 million subscribers globally, a 30.4 per cent increase year on year, spread across 38 countries in the Middle East, Asia, Africa and Europe. In the UAE alone, the subscriber base grew 6.4 per cent to 16.5 million. That global reach is the foundation on which e& is building its AI and digital services ambitions, because scale in telecoms is not just about network coverage. It is about the data, the relationships and the infrastructure footprint that makes AI-powered services commercially deployable across multiple markets simultaneously.
“Our financial performance in the first half of 2026 reflects the success of our strategy, which is built on the strength of e&’s core business portfolio, alongside our continued investments in technology infrastructure and advanced digital solutions. This has provided us with a solid foundation to sustain growth and reinforce our leadership across regional and international markets.”
— Masood M. Sharif Mahmood, Group CEO, e& (PRNewswire, July 2026)
The Portfolio Reset That Defines e&’s Next Chapter
The headline financial results sit alongside a strategic portfolio reset that is arguably more significant than the revenue growth. e& completed the sale of its entire stake in Vodafone Group in July 2026, generating gross cash proceeds of AED 21.9 billion and a net cash gain of AED 4.8 billion. It also completed the partial sale of a 12.5 per cent stake in Careem Technologies to Uber for AED 367 million. These transactions are not disposals of struggling assets. They are deliberate exits from legacy positions at premium valuations, generating capital that e& is redirecting toward the AI, connectivity and digital services infrastructure that defines its strategic ambition. The sale of Vodafone at a premium to market price is a particularly clean execution: e& acquired that stake when Vodafone was under pressure, held it through a period of transformation, and sold at a moment of strength.
The proceeds from these transactions give e& a significant capital base to deploy into the technology infrastructure buildout the UAE is accelerating. With the US AI chip access reclassification now in place and the demand for AI-enabled enterprise services growing rapidly across e&’s 38-country footprint, the company has both the capital and the connectivity infrastructure to be a meaningful player in the regional AI economy, not just as a network provider but as an AI services platform for governments, enterprises and consumers.
What e& Means for the UAE’s Technology Ambition
The Masood M. Sharif Mahmood quote that closed e&’s H1 results announcement is worth reading carefully: the group’s greatest strength, he said, lies in its ability to ensure business continuity while delivering reliable digital services enhanced by advanced AI capabilities. During the regional conflict earlier in 2026, e& maintained service continuity, strengthened network readiness and supported remote work and education ecosystems. That operational resilience, demonstrated under genuine pressure, is the commercial proposition that differentiates e& from technology companies that have never had to run critical national infrastructure through a crisis.
For businesses operating across the UAE and the broader region that are making decisions about connectivity, cloud, AI services and digital infrastructure, the e& H1 results confirm that the group is executing on a credible transformation rather than just repositioning its brand. The revenue growth, the margin strength, the subscriber expansion and the capital discipline of the portfolio exits all point in the same direction: a company that knows what it is building and is building it with consistency. In the context of the UAE’s broader technology ambitions, e& is not a bystander. It is core infrastructure.
“e& maintained service continuity, strengthened network readiness, supported remote work and education ecosystems, and provided reliable digital infrastructure for individuals, businesses, and government entities. The Group has demonstrated its ability to fulfil its national and economic role.”
— Masood M. Sharif Mahmood, Group CEO, e& (e& H1 2026 Results, July 30, 2026)
