Maroc Télécom

Maroc Telecom provides fixed-line, mobile, Internet, data, and other telecommunications services directly and through its subsidiaries in Morocco and other countries.

The government of Morocco began privatizing the company in 2001, selling 35% of it to Vivendi France and raising that sale incrementally to 53%, by December 2007. The government’s 14.9% equity offering led to the concurrent listing of the company on the Paris and CasablancaCasablanca stock exchanges, in December 2004.

In the mobile market, Maroc Telecom had a monopoly until 2000, when MédiTelecom was established as the second GSM operator. At the end of 2008, Maroc Telecom’s group-wide mobile operations served 17.8 million subscribers, a 12.01% annual increase; its Morocco mobile subscribers accounted for 84.12% of the group total, or 14.4 million, having grown by 8.47.5% since 2007.

The fixed-line monopoly held by Maroc Telecom until the end of 2006 was broken by MédiTélécom and WanaWana. By the close of 2008, the company had shown a 2.77% decrease in Morocco’s fixed-line subscribers, to 1.29 million, while Internet subscribers in Morocco had grown by 1.26% to 482,000.

Maroc Telecom began its international expansion in April 2001, when it acquired 54% of Mauritel Group, a fixed-line, mobile and Internet service provider in Mauritania. Mauritel, which has been operating under a Maroc Telecom subsidiary since 2002, increased both mobile and fixed-line subscribers by 26% to 1.1 million and by 35% to 49,000, consecutively, by the end of 2008.

In Burkina Faso, Maroc Telecom acquired 51% of Onatel, a fixed-line, mobile and Internet service provider. By the end of 2008, Onatel had increased its annual mobile subscribers operating under the Telmob brand by 73% to 977,000, its Internet subscribers by 19% to 17,000 and its fixed-line subscribers by 19% to 145,000.

The company acquired 51% of Gabon Telecom in February 2007, a mobile and fixed-line telecom operator in Gabon. By the end of 2007, annual mobile subscribers had increased by 16% to 447,000 and fixed-line subscribers by 38% to 33,000.

In Europe, Maroc Telecom established Mobisud France, a mobile virtual network, in December 2006 and opened a branch of the subsidiary in Belgium, in May 2007. The Mobisud subscriber-base in France and Belgium totaled 163,000, by the close of 2008.