CAIRO: France Telecom hopes to build on the success of its development in Egypt to further expand in the region, chairman Didier Lombard said on Tuesday.
I always said that the growth opportunities of France Telecom are focused on this part of the world because it s a region where the growth rate is one of the highest, he told reporters. Egypt can be a good start, a good basis to make this investment, said Lombard, who met Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif and Minister of Communications Tariq Kamel during his three-day trip.
The French telecom giant owns 71.25 percent of Egyptian mobile operator Mobinil, which recently reached 10 million subscribers and has a 52 percent market share in the Arab world s most populous country.
As a shareholder of Mobinil it has been a big success because we started with very few subscribers five years ago and now we celebrate 10 million, Lombard said.
He said France Telecom was seeking to use Mobinil as a springboard for further investment in the region.
We used to follow this process in all parts of the world, and usually it is more efficient than direct investment, he said.
France Telecom already has a presence in Jordan.
During his trip, Lombard also announced plans to create 400 new jobs at France Telecom s Orange Business Services (formerly Equant) centre in Cairo, bringing the total number of employees there to 1,500.
Orange Business Services – a global leader in communication solutions for multinational companies worldwide – has its largest centre in Cairo.
I have never seen such an efficient centre worldwide, he said.
France Telecom has 160 million customers overall, more than 100 million of them outside France.
