Orascom Telecom Holding (OTH) provides Telecommunications and Internet services through its subsidiaries in the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Europe. It was established in 1997 to consolidate the telecom and IT interests of the Orascom family of companies and the controlling shareholders, the Sawiris family.

The group’s international activities include a number of lasting and temporary acquisitions. In Egypt, it submitted a successful bid in 1998 to operate MobiNilMobiNil, the country’s first GSM, for EGP1.755 billion (USD516 million). As of July 2008, it was one of MobiNil’s majority stakeholders, along with France Telecom. OTH acquired a stake in Jordan’s first mobile operator, Zain Jordan, in 1999, and sold it three years later for EGP1.97 billion (USD431 million). The group acquired a GSM license to operate the Yemen Company for Mobile Telephony, SabafonSabafon in 2000, which it sold two years later.

OTH acquired stakes in the Malta-based Telecel, with 11 licenses in Africa. Of these, only the Zimbabwe license remains, as of August 2008.

In Bangladesh, OTH acquired a full stake in a mobile operator, in 2004 and renamed it Bangalink. At the end of 2007, the subsidiary had 7 million subscribers. The group completed its acquisition of Pakistan Mobile Communications (Mobilink) in June 2007.

In Hong Kong, the group acquired shares in Hutchison Telecommunications International, serving additionally, Indonesia, Vietnam, Macau, Thailand and Sri Lanka. In December 2007, the group sold its entire stake.

OTH was part of the consortium which won the license for a wireless operator in Canada for EGP2.36 billion (USD442 million) in July 2008.

Listed on the Cairo and London stock exchanges since 2000, OTH acquired Greenfield licenses in Algeria (2001), Tunisia (2002)—operated jointly with Wataniya Telecom—and Iraq (2003), which was sold in 2007, for EGP6.7 billion (USD1.2 billion). In 2008, OTH acquired a greenfield license to operate a GSM in Korea and pay EGP2.24 billion (USD400 million) in network infrastructure and license fees for three years.

The group provides Internet service through subsidiaries, Egypt-based LinkdotnetLinkdotnet and Belgium-based M-link, which provides gateway services to the company’s worldwide operations.

OTH owns Medcable and Trans World Associates, both involved in building and operating undersea fiber optic cables, to transmit international voice and data traffic between the group’s Europe and Middle East operations. Egyptian based Ring offers GSM telecommunication services, such as retail franchise, product customization, logistics and supply chain management; and Orasinvest provides telecommunication and business services.

Group revenues were EGP27 billion (USD5 billion) at the end of 2007, 88.5% of which were earned from GSM operations, 10.4% from the telecommunications and the rest from Internet services.

Compared to other telecoms in the MENA region, OTH had the highest number of group subscribers at the end of 2007, totaling 70 million.