Maroc Telecom

Maroc Telecom (Acronym: IAM, Arabic: اتصالات المغرب‎‎) is the main telecommunication company in Morocco.

IAM employs around 11,178 employees. It has 8 regional delegations with 220 offices present on all the territory of Morocco. The company is listed on both the Casablanca Stock Exchange and Euronext Paris.

History

From postal services to telephony

The acronym IAM of Maroc Telecom comes from its original name Ittisalat Al Maghrib. The name "Maroc Telecom" was adopted later for better international recognizability.

The origin of a Moroccan telecommunication project dates back to 1891 when King Hassan I created the first postal service of Morocco. In 1913, the Moroccan Postal Telephone and Telegraph was established before a Dahir (King's decree) related to the monopole of the state of Telegraphy and Telephony was published.

Telephony

In 1967 Morocco placed the first underwater cable between Tetouan, Morocco, and Perpignan, France, through the Mediterranean. A few years later, in 1970, a transmission via INTELSAT was introduced. The Telex service was then automated in 1971 just before installing a digital center in Fes.

Due to the advancement of Telecommunications around the globe, Morocco decided to create a new entity called the Office National des Postes et Télécommunications (ONPT) to manage the industry. ONPT was responsible of the introduction of Analog Mobile Radiotelephony in 1987. Later on, in 1992, Morocco set up the first underwater optical fiber cable. Two years later, a GSM service was operational.

Internet

The internet was introduced in Morocco by ONPT in 1995. Service remains slow, with Maroc Telecom typically delivering less than half, and sometimes only a tenth, of promised speeds of up to 20 Mbit/s.

The birth of IAM

After the publication of a telecommunications' decree, Maroc Telecom (IAM) is founded in 1998.

Privatization

On 20 February 2001 the Moroccan Government sold 35% of Maroc Telecom's shares to French mass media company Vivendi. The transaction amounted to 23 Billion dirhams.^[1] On 4 January 2005 Vivendi acquired an additional 16% for 12.4 billion dirhams raising its participation to 51%.^[2] In October 2007, the CDG ceded, via its subsidiary Filpar Holding, 2% of Maroc Telecom to Vivendi in exchange of 0.6% of Vivendi's shares, putting the total shares owned by Vivendi to 53%.^[3]

Ownership stake

In July 2013, it was announced that the firm’s majority owner, Vivendi, would sell its 53% stake in the firm to Etisalat for around $4.2 billion.^[4]

Activities

IAM has three main activities:

Land lines

It consists of the provision of public phones throughout Morocco. The fixed park reaches 1,34 million lines.

Mobile phones

Mobile services are provided via a GSM network. Morocco Telecom counted 33 million customers at the end of October 2012. Its network covers 97% of the Moroccan population. It also has 12.5 million customers in Mali, Gabon, Burkina Faso and Mauritania. It is one of the most profitable phone operators in Africa with a revenue of 2.2 Billion Euros during the first 9 months of 2012.^[5]

Maroc Telecom started the 4G+ in Morocco in 13/07/2015 to negative reception because of low internet connection speeds not living up to the alleged 4G standards.

Projects and investments

On June 1, 2006, IAM launched the IPTV package deployed by Huawei Technology via the ADSL line. The service was the first of its kind in Africa and the Middle East.

In July 2006 Maroc Telecom signed with the French telecommunications equipment company Alcatel a contract for a submarine cable network connection between Morocco and France. Morocco Telecom's aim is to upgrade the capacity of its services (i.e.broadband services, call centers...). The project cost € 26 million and was named "Atlas Offshore".^[6]

In December 2006, IAM invested in Burkina Faso’s ONATEL acquiring 51% of its capital.^[7]

See also

• Communications in Morocco
• Internet censorship in Morocco
• List of telephone operating companies
• Inwi
• Meditel
• Maroc Telecom HQ

References

External links

• Maroc Telecom website
• Euronext analysis

Moroccan telecommunications companies
Maroc Telecom Méditel Inwi

MADEX companies of Morocco
Banque Commerciale du Maroc Banque Populaire du Maroc BMCE Bank Crédit Immobilier et Hôtelier Holcim Lafarge Ciments Managem Maroc Telecom ONA SAMIR Société Nationale d'Investissement Sonasid Wafa Assurance