Wireless Federation

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.

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.

Wireless Mobile Telecom Wireless News

Telegeography writes…French media conglomerate Vivendi has acquired a 51% stake in Burkina Faso’s fixed and wireless operator Onatel via its North African subsidiary Maroc Telecom. The losing bidders for the stake were DeTeCon (Germany), Essar Teleholding (India), France Telecom, Monaco Telecom, Saudi Telecom Company and Sistema/MTS of Russia. According to South African website MyADSL, Maroc Telecom paid USD290 million for the Onatel stake; the remainder is owned by the government (23%), employees (6%) and others (20%). Onatel is reported to have around 100,000 fixed line subscribers, while its mobile subsidiary Telmob claimed 400,000 customers.

Wireless Mobile Telecom