Dr. Marwan Al Ahmadi

'It is all a question of market penetration,' says MTC Chief Strategy Officer Dr. Marwan Al Ahmadi, a Saudi national, who is also Chief Operating Officer for MTC Vodafone Bahrain.

'In a market like the UAE 90% of the population already has a mobile phone, while in sub-Saharan Africa we are talking about less than five per cent, so there is a big opportunity.'

What about getting paid? Is that not a problem?

'No, pre-paid is the major offering in these markets, hence no receivables or bad debts,' he says. 'Moreover, in certain African countries, mobile phones are all they have got to make a call which makes a mobile a necessity not a luxury'.

'If you look at the global growth in mobile phone lines from two to three billion that is expected by 2010 then 85% of that growth will be from emerging markets. And that is where we want to position MTC.'

That MTC is arguably the most successful Arab company of recent times is hard to dispute. On the Kuwait Stock Exchange MTC ranks second only to the National Bank of Kuwait in terms of market capitalization with a value of $6 billion. First quarter profits of $141 million on sales of $310 million speak for themselves.

Best known in the region for its MTC Fastlink operation in Jordan and as MTC Vodafone in Bahrain and Kuwait, and most recently in Iraq through MTC Atheer, does the group have any more ambitions in the Middle East?

'Sure we would like to be working in Egypt and Saudi Arabia where we hope a second mobile license will be awarded in 2006. We are also expanding our services in many areas such as data services and 3G.

'So far we have 3G mobile phone services working in Bahrain, and on trial in Kuwait. I can phone my wife in Kuwait on a video-link from Bahrain at the moment. We were first to launch 3G in Bahrain at the end of 2003, first with hotspots only but now we have 100% coverage.'

'We have 11 shops in Bahrain selling the handsets so that is certainly not a problem, and we can presently offer 3G roaming services in seven countries, though not yet in the UAE.'

Meanwhile, Dr. Al Ahmadi says that the best regional growth prospects are in Iraq where MTC had 340,000 subscribers at the end of March.

'We started with the license in the Southern region of Iraq and after successfully completing the network expansion we could then enter Baghdad under the terms of our licence agreement,' he explains.

'So the numbers are already much higher since March due to entering Baghdad, and we see prospects for fast growth in Iraq similar to that in the sub-Saharan countries acquired through Celtel. We will not be compromising on services in Iraq either. They will have GPRS, SMS and Internet access.'