Mobinil incurred losses for the second year in a row. This year’s third quarter the mobile phone service provider lost LE403 million, compared to LE37.7 million during the same period last year.
Amr al-Alfi of a financial consulting firm attributed the losses to the saturation of the telecom market in Egypt between various operators. “Attracting new subscribers has become rather difficult,” he said.
He explained that Mobnil depends mainly on borrowing to finance itself, which burdens it with huge amounts of debt services. “The company’s balance sheet shows an increase in gross profit and revenues of 2 percent, though,” he said.
“Also, the rise of the dollar against the pound has been a problem,” he said.
Karim Abdel Aziz, CEO of the National Investment Funds, said Mobinil fell to third place among mobile phone operators, both in terms of services and profitability. “Etisalat and Vodafone are making good profits,” he said.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
