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Maroc Telecom Records Strong Growth in 2006, Expands Through Acquisitions

February 2007
Maroc Telecom , the Moroccan telecommunication firm that is 51% owned by France's Vivendi had a good year. In the fourth quarter of 2006, revenues of €499 million increased by 4.0% (+5.5% at constant currency). An evolution of €10 million is due to a one-off reassessment of the inactivated scratch prepaid cards at Maroc Telecom dealers. Excluding this non-recurring item, revenues actually increased by 7.6% at constant currency.

The company's revenues from its mobile phone activity rose by 8.8% to €322 million, a 10.4% year-on-year increase at constant currency due to the impact of the year end promotions and the €10 million reassessment of the inactivated prepaid cards at Maroc Telecom dealers. Excluding this last non-recurring item, revenues increased by 13.8% at constant currency. Fixed and internet revenues grew by 2.5% to €289 million (+3.7% at constant currency).

For full year of 2006 Maroc Telecom brought in a healthy €2.053 billion increased by 10.4% (+10.2% at constant currency) due to the good performance of all its business activities.

2006 mobile revenues grew by 15.3% to €1,333 million (+15.1% at constant currency). The strong growth of the customer base reaching 10.7 million customers (+30% and a net increase of 2.47 million customers over the year,) explains the mobile revenues growth.

The blended Average Revenue Per User (or ARPU) reached 10.1 euros (-9.3% compared to December 2005 at constant currency) due to the strong increase of the customer base and the decrease of the average price of communication. With the sharp increase of the customer base and the decrease of the access fees, the churn rate reached 20% (+8 points year on year).

2006 fixed and internet revenues grew by 5.8% to €1,145 million (+5.6% at constant currency). This good performance was achieved thanks to the dynamism of the public telephony segment (revenue grew by almost 15%), to the growth of the incoming international traffic (+11%), the continuing success of broadband activity and the development of data services to business and by 13%. In this context, the voice average monthly invoice increased by almost 3%.

The fixed customer base decreased to 1.266 million lines (-5.6% compared to December 2005). The ADSL customer base experienced a strong growth and almost reached 384,000 lines (+59% compared to December 2005).

To serve its existing customers and attract new ones, Maroc Telecom launched in September 2006, new unlimited offers on the fixed telephony segment, which allow customers to call all the local and national Maroc Telecom fixed numbers with no time limit. The success of these offers led to the stabilization of the customer base over the last quarter.

Meanwhile, Maroc Telecom has been aggressively seeking to expand elsewhere, in particular in Africa where it has recently acquired a 51% stake of Gabon Telecom. The transaction was valued at €61 million. Under the executive leadership of Moustapha Laarabi of Gabon Telecom and its chairmanship of Thomas Souah, Maroc Telecom plans to boost services by investing €150 million.

Gabon Telecom controls all the fixed line business in Gabon and owns 100% of Libertis, one of the three mobile phone operators in the country.

In addition to partial ownership of Mauritania Mauritel, Maroc Telecom also purchased on December 29, 2006 51% of Burkina Fasso ONATEL, confirming it was on the acquisition path as part of continent-wide extension.

© The North Africa Journal 2007