Group's activities

Orange owns a 71.25% interest in Mobinil (Mobinil Telecommunications S.A.E.), which in turn owns a 51.0% stake in Egyptian Company for Mobile Services (“ECMS”), which operates under the Mobinil brand. The remaining 28.75% of Mobinil are owned by Egyptian group Orascom Telecom, which also owns a 20% direct interest in ECMS, whose shares are traded on the Cairo and Alexandria stock exchanges.
In application of a judgment given in March 2009, France Telecom obtained the right to acquire Orascom Telecom’ s full 28.75% stake in Mobinil, which did not go through due to the miscellaneous litigation in Egypt . On April 14, 2010 France Telecom and Orascom announced the basis of an agreement on Mobinil and ECMS (cfr. PR).

Mobinil’s customer base stood at 25.4 million as of end 2009, a 26% increase year-on-year (+5.2 million customers). Prepaid customers account for 97% of the total customer base, and generate the most growth. Annual revenues totaled 10.8 billion Egyptian pounds, a 7.9% increase compared with 2008 thanks to growth in customer volumes. Average revenue per user continued its decline in 2009, with a fall of 16 % to 39 Egyptian pounds caused mainly by the intensifi cation of competition between operators and the acquisition of new customers with lower spending power.

Mobinil sells its products and services through various distribution channels in Egypt, amongst others:
directly owned Mobinil stores, the number of which increased from 33 in 2008 to 42 in 2009;
a network of Mobinil franchises, which increased from 30 in 2008 to 49 in 2009;
specialized distributors and retailers. In 2009, about 9,500 of these outlets offered Mobinil services and products.

In May 2009, Mobinil’s 2G network covered 99.7% of the Egyptian population. Mobinil has also installed more than 1,130 sites in order to serve most of Egypt’s big cities since the launch of its 3G HSPA network in September 2008.