Mobile phone operators are gearing up for Ramadan, a time when competition reaches its peak with companies making new offers to their clients.
Officials at Mobinil and Vodafone, two of the three mobile phone operators in Egypt, said competition is however unlikely to be as intense as it was last year, when operators cut prices drastically.
Mobinil has a new package of offers, but is taking into account the drop in revenues from call services, said a source at Mobinil.
Yasser Radwan, vice president for commercial affairs at Mobinil, earlier announced that Mobinil will focus on expanding internet services, especially after the company merged with Linkdotnet and the mobile phone market neared saturation.
Khaled Hegazi, head of the external and government relations department at Vodafone, said companies are unlikely to slash prices as they did last year.
He said companies have already acquired considerable numbers of subscribers and are not interested in attracting new customers.
He added that mobile phone operators have not agreed on large price cuts, because any such agreement would constitute a violation of the rules of competition.
He said the three mobile operators seem to have similar ideas for Ramadan promotions.
However, if any company cuts its prices significantly, this will push the other operators to make similar offers in order to retain customers, Hegazi said.
Translated from the Arabic Edition.
