Egyptian businessman Naguib Sawiris has taken over as CEO of the parent company of Cheo Technology, which runs North Korea’s Koryolink 3G cellular telephone network. Sawiris assumed the top job at Orascom Telecom Media and Technology (OTMT) after the former CEO, Ahmed Abou Doma, stepped down for personal reasons. He had been CEO for less than a…

 

Subscriptions to Koryolink, North Korea’s only 3G mobile phone network, have just passed the 2.4 million mark, according to the latest figures from the operator. The figure represents a significant slowdown in growth in the last year over the previous year and points to the first big spurt in subscriptions being over. The carrier might have…

 

Orascom Telecom Media and Technology (OTMT), the Egyptian company that owns a 75 percent stake in North Korea’s on 3G cellular network operator, has apparently been doing very well in the North Korean market. A recent audit report by Deloitte says the company’s assets in North Korea stand at US$512 million, of which $422 million…

 

Koryolink, North Korea’s sole 3G cellular service provider, is close to hitting the 2 million subscriber mark. The news was disclosed this week by the Koryolink CEO Ezz Heikal in Pyongyang and later confirmed by the company’s head office in Cairo. It means that Koryolink will have roughly doubled its subscriber base in the last 15 months.…

 

Foreigners visiting North Korea should be able to get mobile data service on their cellphones within the coming week, according to a report on Friday. Koryolink, the country’s only 3G cellphone network, plans to allow visitors to buy mobile Internet when they arrive in the country, the AP said in a report from Pyongyang. The…

 

The CEO of Egypt’s Orascom Telecom Media and Technology (OTMT), which owns 75 percent of North Korea’s sole 3G cellular operator, is back in Pyongyang, according to KCNA. [Updated. See below] The North Korean news agency said Naguib Sawiris arrived on October 4 with four colleagues. It provided a couple of pictures of Sawiris and…

 

North Koreans have not been banned from using mobile phones during a mourning period for Kim Jong Il despite a press report to the contrary, according to the majority owner of North Korea’s nationwide cellular network. The U.K.’s Daily Telegraph newspaper reported on January 26th that the North Korean government had warned citizens they would be “branded as ‘war…

 

 

 

North Korea’s nationwide 3G cellular network could miss an end-of-year target to have a million subscribers despite two successive quarters of record subscriber growth. Koryolink added 142,000 subscriptions in the third quarter, beating the 131,000 subscriptions added in the previous three months, to end September with 809,000 users. That leaves it 191,000 subscribers short of hitting a…