Kuwait's Zain said on Sunday it paid 867.8 million riyals ($231.4 million) to Motorola on behalf of its unit Zain Saudi to cover costs related to a contract entered by the unit with the US firm. Zain said it made the payment on December 12 to alleviate financial burden from its Saudi unit and to support the company's operations, it said in a bourse statement.

Zain Saudi has not made a quarterly net profit since launching operations in 2008 and extended the maturity of a 9 billion riyals ($2.40 billion) Islamic loan for another 21 days last month.

Copyright Reuters, 2012