Mobinil, a 98.92%-owned subsidiary of Orange, starts actual rebranding steps by implementing the French parent company's international standards of services and offers, CEO Yves Gauthier announced Tuesday. Mobinil is to be rebranded as Orange. In addition, Mobinil has also activated the highest levels of service quality provided by Orange to the Egyptian market. This comes as part of the France-based Orange's strategy to provide integrated package of high-quality communication services globally, Gauthier noted. The telecom official stressed that rebranding as Orange basically aims to compete in providing comprehensive technology services globally and not just locally. Hence, Gauthier said Mobinil is currently working on applying Orange's international standards of provided services and offers. Once Mobinil agrees on a date to announce the rebranding to Orange, the company will launch a media campaign to introduce the new trademark and its points of strengths in terms of innovation and service quality to the clients. Following the rebranding, Orange seeks to compete globally as an integrated technological service provider, against other giant trademarks such as Google and Facebook.
Egypt represents one-third of Orange's customers globally, said Gauthier, referring that Orange also intends to boost its presence in the African continent by unifying the trademarks of its affiliates working there. Orange is present in the North African region, in Tunisia and owns a large stake in one of the mobile operators working in Morocco and has plans to capture a controlling stake in it like the case in Mobinil. Hence, Orange has already strong presence in the region, and this represents a point of strength for the French group. Furthermore, Gauthier said Mobinil targets back to profitability this year, notably the operating profits in the company's mobile sector. Yet, he ruled out profitable return for Mobinil's fixed internet sector, represented in it LINKdotNET Company, since it has lost so far around 50,000 clients. Gauthier attributed the loss to Telecom Egypt's installation of new multi-service access network (MSAN) cabinets, seeking to provide customers with high-speed internet through the replacement of copper cables with fibre optics. Such move will probably hurt Mobinil's consolidated business results b end of the current year, he added. Meanwhile, Mobinil CEO said his company is firmly seeking to reduce the debts by carrying out a number of procedures, which they had already started. Mobinil has some of its wireless towers in a deal worth one billion Egyptian pounds, fully allocated for reducing the company's debts. Gauthier also referred to another procedure Mobinil plans to carry out which is to attract new investors as some fresh blood bringing new energy and ideas to the company. Mobinil's current status is neither critical nor urgent since revenues from operations are expected to cover the cost of debts within this year as well as achieve a financial surplus to be reflected in achieving profitability by the end of 2015, Gauthier noted.
