CAIRO: Mobinil, Egypt s largest mobile operator by subscribers, said on Sunday it was on track to meet its target for 10 percent revenue growth this year and that a dispute between shareholders should be resolved soon. The first two months of the year we can t say it has been business as usual, but we should be able to achieve 10 percent, Hassan Kabbani, the company s chief executive, told Reuters in an interview. Mobinil posted a record profit in the fourth quarter of 2008 on the back of 24 percent revenue growth. For the full year, its revenue grew 21.3 percent. Kabbani, who declined to give details of the firm s performance to date in 2009, also said Mobinil s subscriber base should grow by between 15 and 20 percent this year, down from about 33 percent in 2008. This growth is coming as we penetrate more remote regions and we go deeper into lower socio-economic classes, he said. Kabbani said a dispute between Mobinil shareholders France Telecom and Orascom Telecom should be resolved soon and the settlement would not impact Mobinil s operations. He did not give a specific date. Court of arbitration The case was referred to the International Court of Arbitration at the International Chamber of Commerce in 2007. It could affect shareholder structure...but I am not seeing any impact (on Mobinil), Kabbani said. The dispute is over implementation of an agreement the companies signed in August 2001 as partners in Mobinil Telecommunications, which owns 51 percent of Mobinil. The parties have not given full details of the issues under dispute. Both France Telecom and Orascom Telecom would continue to be shareholders in Mobinil under any resolution, Kabbani said. He also said Mobinil could complete a deal to buy information technology companies LINKdotNET and Link Egypt by mid-2009. We strongly believe there are lots of synergies between internet service providers and mobile operators, he said. Orascom Telecom, which currently owns the companies, said in February it may sell them to Mobinil. Kabbani declined to say how much Mobinil could pay for the firms. He also said Mobinil had applied for authorization from Egypt s central bank to offer the country s first mobile phone banking services, which would allow transactions such as money transfers through Mobinil. This service will address unbanked people, he said.
