(AFP Photo)
By Mohamed Alaa El-Din
Vodafone Egypt’s CEO, Ahmed Essam, revealed the number of the company’s clients who use money transfer services via mobiles reached more than 1 million clients. Vodafone launched money transfer services in 2013.
Vodafone Egypt previously announced investments in the Egyptian market at EGP 9.5bn, of which EGP 3.5bn was allocated this year to network development and preparations as well as for the completion of the 4G service preparations. The company has also allocated more than EGP 400m in investments in alternative energy, to avoid the impact of power outage on its networks performance.
In terms of the recent Internet price increase crisis, Essam asserted that there are no direct negotiations with Telecom Egypt concerning this issue. Private companies had previously requested the reduction of rental prices for infrastructure so that they can decrease Internet prices. He added that, at the same time, Vodafone Data’s market share, specialised in providing Internet services, does not exceed 10%, while Internet service profits do not exceed 7% of Vodafone Egypt’s total profits.
In May, Minister of Communications and Information Technology Khaled Negm revealed a plan to decrease ADSL Internet prices and increase its speed. This plan was not implemented, because only one company presented a discounted offer to the National Telecom Regulatory Authority (NTRA), namely TE Data, owned by Telecom Egypt.
Private Internet companies Vodafone Data, LINKdotNET, Etisalat Data, and Noor Data Network, announced they would not present a new discounted price plan. This is due to the high cost of the service provided, caused by the high cost of infrastructure rental from Telecom Egypt. As a result, Negm requested that Telecom Egypt conduct a study on decreasing the infrastructure’s rental price for private Internet companies. Due to this step, some members of the executive management accused him of wasting public funds.
Essam said that Vodafone Egypt aims to increase the number of its outsourcing employees, from 3, 500 employees to 7,000 employees, over the next year.
