Egyptian mobile phone operator Mobinil said on Sunday first-quarter net income rose 28 percent to LE 397 million ($69.9 million) from LE 311 million a year earlier.
Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) was LE 851 million, 21 percent up on LE 702 million in the January-March period of 2006, it said.
Mobinil, also known as Egyptian Company for Mobile Services, added 1.402 million active subscribers in the first quarter, bringing the total to 10.669 million, 53 percent up on a year earlier, it added.
Its main rival, Vodafone Egypt reported 8.4 million subscribers at the end of December 2006.
The results were above forecasts by Cairo brokerage Beltone for net income of 380 million pounds and EBITDA of LE 810 million. Beltone had also estimated that the number of subscribers would grow to 9.7 million at the end of the quarter.
The main shareholders in Egyptian Company for Mobile Services are France Telecom, with 36.3 percent, and Orascom Telecom with 33 percent.
A third rival, a consortium led by Etisalat of the United Arab Emirates, will launch its own network in Egypt on May 1, ending the long Vodafone-Mobinil duopoly.
Mobinil Chief Executive Office Alex Shalaby said in a statement that he expected to see relatively high growth throughout the year and the company had already made 708 million pounds of capital expenditure in the first quarter.
The company s figures show that all the growth in the number of subscribers came from the prepaid sector, while the number of postpaying customers declined.
Blended average-revenue-per-user fell 13 percent, but with the large increase in subscriber numbers global revenue rose to LE 1.775 billion, up 27 percent.
One of the company s new services during the quarter was its Lifetime Validity offer, which requires customers to make only one charged call in three months in order to retain an account.
