CAIRO: Concerns over the future of Egypt's telecom industry have been thwarted by recent company statements confirming that their revenue is growing dramatically. After nearly two years of political turmoil in the country, the telecom sector is rebounding with better than expected revenue. According to combined reports from the three mobile phone operators in Egypt, Mobinil, Vodafone and Etisalat Misr, they have witnessed a 23.1 percent growth rate since 2008, including during the January 2011 uprising that saw the government shut off their networks for days. At the end of last year, Egypt had 83.8 million mobile subscribers, nearly 100 percent penetration, and a recent Frost & Sullivan report suggests that this number should double by 2018. Even though fixed-line services are expected to continue their decline as Egyptians turn toward mobile devices for their calls, Broadband Internet is also seen as one of the most important IT sectors that can grow in the country, which requires a fixed-line for the DSL service in the country. Frost & Sullivan added that the telecom market now finds itself earning revenues of around $6.35 billion, but they projected that by 2018, this figure should jump over $11 billion. “The introduction of new triple-play licenses in the country is expected to generate $1bn investment over five years in the telecom market,” noted Frost & Sullivan Research Analyst Jonas Zelba in a statement discussing the Egyptian market. “These new triple-play licenses promise innovative services for subscribers,” he added.
