CAIRO: Telecom Egypt beat second-quarter forecasts to post its fifth-largest quarterly profit on record on Thursday helped by its stake in mobile phone operator Vodafone Egypt. Egypt s monopoly fixed-line telephone company said it made LE 681.2 million ($127.8 million) in the three months to the end of June, up 65 percent from last year. That topped analysts forecasts which ranged from LE 560 million to LE 650 million. Earnings from Vodafone Egypt, in which Telecom Egypt owns a 45 percent stake, jumped 25 percent to LE 330 million. The mobile market in Egypt is growing and Vodafone is clearly outperforming the other operators, Telecom Egypt Chairman Akil Beshir told Reuters. The company had 11.3 million fixed-line subscribers at the end of June, up 3 percent. Its wholesale revenue, which comes from selling access to its network to other operators, rose 5.5 percent in the first half to LE 1.9 billion. Other Egyptian mobile operators, including Mobinil and Etisalat Egypt, pay Telecom Egypt for use of its network for mobile to fixed-line calls and for international calls. Beshir said the company was on track to meet its forecast for full-year revenue growth of between 2 percent and 3 percent and that full-year profit should grow faster than last year s 4.4 percent pace. Beshir told Reuters in March the company was in talks to buy an existing telecom operator in the Middle East, Africa, or Eastern Europe to capture growth outside its home market. Egypt plans to sell a second fixed-line license in September, which would end Telecom Egypt s monopoly. Telecom Egypt jointly owns Algerian fixed-line operator Lacom, the country s first private fixed-line provider. Telecom Egypt has said it has resolved differences with Algeria s government, which it had accused of preferential treatment toward the state-owned operator, and may invest more in the North African country.
