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Wireless Federation » archive for 'Maroc Telecom'

STC even after rejection, confident about expansion in North Africa (Saudi Arabia)

  • September 23rd, 2008
  • 5:35 am

Saudi Telecom Company is sure about it’s expansion in North Africa, despite a reported rejection from the Maroc Telecom’s French owner Vivendi. According to STC CEO Saud Al Duweish hopes a change in mind of Vivendi, which reportedly denied of STC making any official bid. ‘We tested the waters for Maroc Telecom but we didn’t get a positive feedback…We hope Vivendi will change its mind,’ he said, adding, ‘We are interested in the Middle East and North Africa in general but we are looking at North Africa in particular.’

   

18 companies to bid for Sotelma (Mali)

  • August 29th, 2008
  • 10:48 am

18 companies have been finalised to bid for the national operator Sotelma. The government increased the price to XOF 200 billion for the incumbent operator, from XOF 80 billion.

Possible bidders include:

  • MTN
  • Vodafone
  • Zain
  • Deutsche Telekom
  • Tunisie Telecom
  • Maroc Telecom
  • Portugal Telecom
  • Saudi Telecom
  • Sudatel

Morocco’s mobile penetration grows to 69.43% (Morocco)

  • August 6th, 2008
  • 9:48 am

The number of mobile subscribers in Morocco grew to 21.412 million in Q2′08 from 20.616 million. Mobile penetration is now 69.43%, a raise of 11.61% since last year. Maroc Telecom won the race by adding up maximum new subscribers, as it’s base rose to 14.211 million in June from 13.697 million in March. Meditel grew to 7.201 million subscribers from 6.919 million.

   

Maroc Telecom HQ1 income up by 18% (Morocco)

  • July 31st, 2008
  • 5:49 am

Maroc Telecom first half net income rises with 18% to $618million, on revenues that increased by 10%. Moreover 11% year-on-year rise in six-month operating profit and raised its forecast for the full year. They are expecting overall 2008 revenue growth to exceed 8%, with an 11% rise in annual earnings from operations.

Maroc Telecom reports a 10% rise in H1′08 revenues (Morocco)

  • July 22nd, 2008
  • 1:07 pm

Maroc Telecom has reported a 10% year-on-year rise in first half revenues to USD1.985 billion  (MAD14.308 billion), reason being the continous growth of its domestic and foreign mobile operations.

Morocco passes 20 million mobile subscribers (Morocco)

  • February 6th, 2008
  • 1:34 pm

Morocco finished 2007 with 20.029 million mobile subscribers, up from 19.188 million in September and 16.005 million at the end of 2006. Mobile penetration has now reached 65.66 percent of the population, versus 53.54 percent a year ago, according to the figures from market regulator ANRT. Out of the total base, only around 800,000 use postpaid services, while the remainder are prepaid. Maroc Telecom has a 66.54 percent share of the market, while Meditel holds 33.46 percent. The number of fixed-line users meanwhile has grown to 2.394 million from 2.266 million in September and 1.266 million at the end of 2006. Fixed penetration rose to 7.85 percent. The number of internet subscribers rose 7.6 percent over the fourth quarter and 31.6 percent over the full year to reach a total 526,080 at the end of 2007. ADSL accounts for 90.6 percent of all subscribers, while plans for 256 Kbps make up 43.6 percent of all ADSL users.

   

Maroc Telecom reports Q3 operating profit up 13% (Morocco)

  • November 6th, 2007
  • 12:55 pm

Maroc Telecom reported third-quarter operating profit of MAD 3.510 billion, up 13 percent from a year earlier thanks to growth at its mobile operations. Revenues improved 18.2 percent to MAD 7.320 billion, helped by contributions from recent acquisitions Gabon Telecom and Onatel. In Morocco, the company added 1.1 million mobile customers in the quarter for a total 12.838 million at the end of September. Its market share improved half a point to 66.9 percent, while churn was up 6.2 points from a year ago to 26.6 percent. ARPU fell 8.1 percent from 2006 to MAD 109 amid price cuts and promotional offers. The fixed-line base edged up 0.9 percent form a year ago to 1.451 million lines, while the average monthly bill was down 3.7 percent due to competition. The ADSL user base increased 36.3 percent from a year ago to a total 443,000 lines. The operator reported 56,000 subscribers and revenues of MAD 15 million for its MVNO Mobisud.

   

Maroc Telecom 9M turnover up 19% (Morocco)

  • November 6th, 2007
  • 8:42 am

For the first nine months of 2007, Moroccan incumbent Maroc Telecom reported consolidated group revenues of MAD20.326 billion (USD2.651 billion), up 19% compared to the same period of last year, and consolidated operating profit of MAD9.509 billion, up 25.2% year-on-year. The telco attributed the performance to strong growth in its customer bases, especially mobile, both in Morocco and at foreign subsidiaries Mauritel (Mauritania), Onatel (Burkina Faso), Gabon Telecom and MVNO Mobisud France/Mobisud Belgium. In the third quarter of 2007 Maroc Telecom’s consolidated turnover amounted to MAD7.320 billion, up 18.2% year-on-year, whilst consolidated operating income rose 13% year-on-year to MAD3.510 billion. Moroccan operations generated nine-month revenues of MAD19.726 billion, up 8% y-o-y, and operating profit of MAD9.265 billion, up 25.6%. Mobile revenues accounted for MAD12.622 billion of the domestic total, up 16.9% from 2006, with the number of wireless customers rising by 22.3% compared to September 2006, to 12.838 million, after a net increase of 1.1 million users during the July-September quarter. Moroccan mobile churn rate reached 26.6% in 3Q07, up 6.2 percentage points compared to the year-ago period, while monthly blended ARPU stood at MAD109, down 8.1% year-on-year. Domestic fixed line and internet revenues amounted to MAD7.104 billion, down 5.0% year-on-year. At end-September, Maroc Telecom’s number of fixed lines in service reached 1.279 million, up 0.9% in twelve months, and its ADSL customer base reached 443,000, up 36.3%. At its Mauritanian unit Mauritel, a 51.1% annual rise in mobile customers to nearly 843,000 drove an 18.3% year-on-year rise in total revenues to MAD873 million in the first three quarters of 2007.

   

 

 

Control over SAT-3 cable system to be relaxed

  • November 2nd, 2007
  • 9:10 am

IDG News Service reports that as of today, monopoly control over Africa’s SAT-3 cable system will officially come to an end, amid fears that the network will run into capacity problems as early as 2009. The submarine fibre runs from South Africa to West Africa, and then links to cable systems extending to Europe and Asia. Since 2002, SAT-3 consortium members with landing points have had a monopoly on selling the cable bandwidth in their own countries, and to countries without landing points. As a result of this closed regime, the cost of telecoms in Africa has remained high, since few operators were able to buy capacity at cost. Consortium members included Telkom of South Africa, Camtel of Cameroon, Ghana Telecom, NITEL of Nigeria, Angola Telecom, Maroc Telecom and Namibia Telecom. African regulators, policy makers, non-governmental organisations and consumers have been pushing for SAT-3 to include more operators to make the market more competitive and bring down bandwidth costs.

The scramble for bandwidth that will occur among African countries following the end of the monopoly is raising fears that the cable will run out of capacity, although Telkom is playing down this fear. Its CEO, Reuben September, said cable utilisation is continually being monitored to avoid the occurrence of any capacity shortfall

Africa currently has a number of cable projects in the pipeline, including the East African Marine System (TEAMS) linking Kenya to the United Arab Emirates, the Eastern Africa Submarine Cable System (EASSy) which is planned to run from South Africa to Sudan with landing points in six countries, and the InfraCO West Coast project which will link South Africa to Europe. All are meant to spur bandwidth competition and bring down the high cost of telecoms on the continent.

   
 

Vivendi acquires further 2% of Maroc Telecom (Morocco)

  • October 27th, 2007
  • 10:47 am

French media and communications group Vivendi has acquired an additional 2% of Morocco’s incumbent telco, Maroc Telecom, bringing its total stake to 53%. Vivendi said the acquisition was a share exchange with the Moroccan Caisse de Depot et de Gestion Group (CDG), which would acquire a 0.6% holding in Vivendi.