CAIRO: The third local mobile phone operator Etisalat Egypt plans to attract as much as 10 million subscribers in the Egyptian mobile phone services market by 2010, according to the company Chief Executive Officer Saleh El-Abdooli. In his statements on the fringes on the Cairo ICT conference Tuesday, El Abdooli pointed out that Etisalat Egypt expects to claw away a market share of 30 percent of the total mobile phone subscribers over this period. He added that the company hopes that a number of existing subscribers at Mobinil and Vodafone would move to his company after the introduction of number portability services. The chief executive of Etisalat Egypt pointed to ongoing negotiations with Mobinil and Vodafone Egypt over the local roaming services that would enable the new company to provide services to its subscribers through the networks of its competitors. Etisalat Egypt is an offspring of an alliance between Etisalat Company of the United Arab Emirates, the National Bank of Egypt, CIB-Egypt and the National Postal Authority, which has won the third mobile phone operation license in a fierce competition at a cost of LE 16.7 billion. The total number of mobile phone subscribers in Egypt recorded 18.7 million as of the end of December 2006 with a penetration rate of 24 percent of total population.
