Mobinil expected to see 24 % drop

The Egyptian Company for Mobile Services (Mobinil) will release its fourth quarter of 2011 financial results on Monday evening, according to the daily Beltone financial report. Beltone expects Mobinil’s Q4/2011 results to reflect the impact of resorting back to the strategy which was set in Q2/2011, where the focus remained on value and margin protection, as opposed to aggressive subscriber acquisition. The financial company estimates a decline of 2.6 per cent in Q4/2011 profits compared to Q3/2011 to reach EBITDA LE‎839 million and a significant deterioration year-on-year of 24 per cent versus EBITDA LE1.1 billion in Q4/2010. \"We expect EBITDA margin to witness further pressure in Q4/2011, due to an anticipated change in the accounting of the employees\' compensation scheme for year-end bonuses, which we believe should be more than offset the company’s operational strategy of margin protection,\" Beltone reported on Monday. Beltone expects Mobinil\'s revenues to grow 1 per cent quarter-on-quarter, recording LE‎622.6 million in Q4/2011 while seeing a 5 per cent drop year-on-year. In October Egypt\'s Mobinil posted a 96 per cent fall in year-on-year third quarter net profits to LE10 million (US$1.6 million) but reversed a loss from the previous quarter. In early February France Telecom said it had reached a preliminary accord to buy out most of Egyptian tycoon Naguib Sawiris\' stake in their jointly owned telecom operator Mobinil, in a deal that will see the French group pay out about 1.5 billion euros, according to Reuters\' calculations.