Egypt's Orascom reports profit from N. Korean mobile service

By Kim Eun-jung
SEOUL, June 25 (Yonhap) -- Egypt-based mobile operator Orascom Telecom earned
US$312,000 in first-quarter sales this year from its mobile service in North
Korea on surging demand among the communist nation's upper class, a company press
release said Thursday.
More than 19,200 people have signed up for Orascom's mobile phone service as of
March since it began with 5,300 subscribers last December, according to the
firm's report on its first quarter earnings in 2009.
Named Koryo Link, the joint venture Orascom set up with the North reported $4.46
million in sales during the first quarter, with operating profit amounting to
$312,000, the report said.
Naguib Sawiris, the firm's chief executive, said in an international conference
in Seoul last week that the number of subscribers surpassed 40,000 in April and
is expected to break the 100,000 mark by the end of this year.
North Korea's subscription rate increased 138 percent in March due to a two-week
promotional campaign offering free minutes and discounts on the mobile handsets.
To cope with increasing demand during the promotional period, Koryo Link
temporarily set up a second retail shop in downtown Pyongyang, which has a
population more than 2 million, Orascom said.
Considering that the average user's fee per one North Korean user is two to eight
times higher than in other countries including Egypt, "the demographics of the
mobile subscribers appears to be mostly concentrated in the upper class," the
report said.
North Korea first started mobile phone service in Pyongyang in November 2002, but
banned it after a deadly explosion in the northern Ryongchon train station in
April 2004.
Launching the third generation mobile phone network in Pyongyang on Dec. 15,
Sawiris vowed to develop and open up the isolated country. The giant Arab firm
also opened a joint bank with North Korea the same month.
ejkim@yna.co.kr
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