Maroc Telecom Annual Revenue up by 7.2%

Maroc Telecom posted a 7.2 percent rise in annual sales to MAD 29.5 billion, driven mainly by its mobile operations. In the fourth quarter, revenues rose a slower 3.9 percent to MAD 7.5 billion. The Moroccan operator expects to report growth in operating profit of over 13 percent for 2008. In its home market Morocco, revenues rose 6.6 percent last year to MAD 27.7 billion. For the fourth quarter, mobile revenues in Morocco improved 4.3 percent to MAD 4.7 billion and fixed-line sales rose 6.4 percent to MAD 2.5 billion. The company finished the year with 14.456 million mobile customers in its home market, up 8.5 percent from 2007, while mobile ARPU fell 8.4 percent to MAD 99.2. The number of fixed-line customers was down 2.8 percent to 1.299 million, while the fixed internet base grew 1.3 percent to 400,000. Marco Telecom also had 30,000 mobile broadband users and 10,000 IPTV customers.