First half revenues at Kuwait’s Mobile Telecommunications Company (MTC) increased 49 per cent from $1.855bn to $2.77bn, while Ebitda grew from $871.5m to $1.19bn, an increase of 36 per cent.

The carrier’s customer base increased 42 per cent compared to H106. MTC now has over 32.145 million active customers in 20 countries in the Middle East and Africa.

Saad Al Barrak, CEO of MTC Group said: “Our extensive investments in license acquisitions and upgrading networks to better serve our customers are bearing fruit and we are confident that we can continue to grow in the markets that we serve.”

Barrack went on to say that it was his firm’s ambition to be a top ten operator by 2011. “MTC is currently examining several new licence opportunities … and has been among the companies short-listed for the second Qatar mobile licence. In addition we look forward to securing a long term license soon in Iraq, confident of success on all these fronts” he said.

Following MTC Consortium’s successful bid for the third mobile licence in Saudi Arabia on 24th March 2007, MTC received official notification on July 7th, 2007 from Saudi Arabia’s Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC) affirming the Council of Minister’s approval to establish a public joint-stock company to operate the third mobile licence in the Kingdom. The 25-year licence allows MTC to offer GSM, 3G and 3.5G services.

On May 7th, 2007 MTC Group acquired the remaining 15 per cent stake of the outstanding shares of its African subsidiary, Celtel International. The final payment of $467m makes Celtel a 100 per cent subsidiary of MTC.