Nov. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Starcomms Plc, Nigeria’s fourth- biggest telecommunications company, posted a wider third-quarter loss after the naira’s depreciation against the U.S. dollar raised the cost of its debt.

The loss amounted to 4.81 billion naira ($31.8 million) in the three months through September, compared with 2.15 billion naira in the same period a year earlier, the Lagos-based company said in a statement on the Web site of the Nigerian Stock Exchange today.

The naira has depreciated 22 percent against the dollar over the past 12 months as oil revenue dropped with declining demand caused by the global economic crisis. Nigeria vies with Angola as Africa’s biggest oil producer.

Starcomms “converted a third of our dollar-denominated debt to naira to try to hedge and protect” against further losses, Maher Qubain, the company’s chief executive officer, said in an interview today. Excluding the unrealized foreign-exchange loss, the company made a profit of about 600 million naira, he said.

With the company’s subscriber base growing 60 percent in nine months and revenue increasing 5.3 percent to 25.6 billion naira, the company is on course to pay a dividend by 2011 as it promised when raising funds through a private placement last year, Qubain said.

Nigeria is Africa’s most-populous nation, with 140 million people. Of that number, only 50 million currently have phone services, Qubain said. In addition, only 2 percent of the population has access to the Internet, he said, adding that data services currently account for 22 percent of the company’s revenue.

Starcomms shares rose 0.09 naira, or 5 percent, to 1.97 naira on the Nigerian Stock Exchange today.

MTN Group Ltd.’s Nigerian unit, Globacom Ltd. and Zain are the country’s three biggest telecommunications operators.

To contact the reporter on this story: Dulue Mbachu in Lagos at dmbachu@bloomberg.net; Paul Okolo in Abuja at pokolo@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: November 5, 2009 10:58 EST