Egypt’s Mobinil has reported a 3% drop in its third-quarter revenues compared to a year ago, of EGP2.7 billion (US$466 million), while net profit fell sharply by 41% to EGP289 million (US$50 million). The company ended the quarter with 28.401 million mobile subscribers, showing an increase of 15.3% over the same period last year.

The company put the decline down higher promotion and advertising costs.

Commenting on third quarter 2010 results, Hassan Kabbani, CEO said: “I am happy to see our Q3 moving in the right direction thanks to the company efforts to mitigate the continuing competitive and regulatory pressures. We were able to make the best use of the limited number of dials received and increase our dial efficiency rate leading to 2.254 million net adds in the quarter. We are also pleased to see the regulator is making available an additional one million dials which we expect to go into service during October.”

“Q3 has seen a 7% QoQ revenue increase and a slowdown in the rate by which revenues are declining despite the seasonal affect of Ramadan with its lower usage and higher promotion and advertising cost that is having a more profound impact on Q3 as it moves into the heart of the quarter.”