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Africa - Telecommunications Market, Regulatory and Infrastructure Overview

While being the world most rapidly growing market for mobile telephony and also home to the fastest growing fixed telephony markets in the world, Africa still has the world's lowest penetration rates and basic telephony provision remains a major need in many parts of the continent, particularly in rural areas. Many African countries are undergoing sectoral reform and foreign investors are scrambling for positions in this very lucrative market as privatization and liberalization are progressively being introduced. Explosive growth in the mobile sector has seen the number of mobile phones outnumber fixed lines in most African countries and in early 2006 mobile users constituted more than 80% of all African telephone subscribers. Other wireless solutions are also used to serve as substitutes for inadequate fixed-line infrastructure. A surge in demand for Internet access and broadband capabilities is expected to drive these developments further in the coming years. Overall, Africa's telecoms future looks very promising and offers great opportunities to service providers, equipment vendors and investors.

Booming Egypt Telecom Market

An effective and efficient telecommunications infrastructure is crucial for the development of a modern society and strong economy. Egypt has embarked on the journey of upgrading and improving its telecommunications infrastructure as technology evolves, traffic grows and the usage of modern communication devices increases in the country. In this direction, Egypt has been witnessing an aggressive development of telecommunication projects educational infrastructure and bandwidth allocation for past some years. Thus, these developments are attracting several ICT companies from different corners of the world, looking to establish major global service delivery centers in the country.

The Egyptian mobile market and found that it poses a huge untapped potential since the penetration rate was just around 50% at the end of 2008. With rapidly improving mobile infrastructure and intense competition among the three mobile operators, the mobile subscribers will grow at a CAGR of around 18% between 2010 and 2012 and the penetration rate will exceed 100% by 2012 end.

Egypt has become one of the leading ICT markets in Africa in terms of subscriber base, services offered and international bandwidth. Our research forecasts that there will be around 22 Million Internet users in the country by the end of 2012.

Egypt being the most populous country in the Middle East region, with 83 Million people, boasts one of the fastest-growing mobile telecom markets in the region. With the impact of gradual liberalization and magnifying competition amongst service providers and manufacturers, the mobile market sees tariff reductions and the introduction of more innovative service packages, such as free e-mailing or free access to Web, which are increasingly attracting Egyptians to adopt mobile telephony services. As a result, the number of mobile subscribers in the country is projected to grow at a CAGR of more than 13% between 2010 and 2013 to reach 100 Million by the end of 2013.

Egypt - Key Statistics, Regulatory & Fixed-Line Telecoms Overviews

Synopsis Egypt's telecom sector is performing consistently well with all sub-sectors being open to competition. The country has the largest fixed-line market in Africa and the Arab region, with a highly profitable incumbent telco (Telecom Egypt) which was partially privatised through an IPO in 2005. The end of its fixed-line monopoly in 2006 has opened up new opportunities for competitive service providers, and a second national fixed-line license to be awarded in 2009 received strong interest from international bidders, although the process has been delayed as a result to the global economic crisis. Efforts are underway to roll out next-generation networks, offering converged IP-based voice, data and entertainment services. An increasing demand for bandwidth has led to the development of several additional submarine fibre optic cable systems to go online.

Egypt - Telecoms Market Statistics & Forecasts

The licensing of Egypt's second fixed network operator has been postponed as a result of the global financial crisis. The incumbent's fixed network rollout has slowed and the number of fixed lines in service started declining during 2009. However, take-up of ADSL broadband services continues unabated. There will be a shift towards wireless technologies, following the first successful WiMAX deployments in the country. In addition, all three mobile networks have launched 3G services and are set to become dominant players in the Internet and broadband market as well. With mobile and broadband tariffs already among the lowest on the continent, operators will seek to streamline their operations and distinguish themselves from the competition by quality of service and introducing new services. This report contains key statistics and provides forecasts for 2012 and 2015 for all market sectors.

ABSTRACT

A brief review of the current status of telecommunication services in Egypt illustrates the achievements and improvements that have taken place during the last ten years, and pointing out objectives and future plans. They highlight five basic areas which they believe to be the main themes of the development plan for communication services in Egypt. These areas are:

• modernization and expansion of the Egyptian telephone network;

• introduction of new services;

• establishment of the first public data network (Egypt-Net);

• emphasizing the importance of R&D and human resource development in the telecommunication field; and

• local manufacturing of modern telecommunication equipment