Orascom Telecom – a mobile network operator with deployments in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia – has more than doubled its nine-month net profit and agreed to sell its Iraqi mobile business for US$1.2 billion. The company said today that net profit rose 116 percent to approximately US$1.3 billion in the nine-months to the end of September. Total subscribers reached about 65 million, up 47 percent year-on-year on a pro-forma basis.

Meanwhile, Orascom is selling its Iraqna Company for Mobile Phone Services Ltd (Iraqna) to MTC-Atheer, the Iraqi subsidiary of Mobile Telecommunications Company K.S.C (Zain). Orascom was first awarded the license to build and operate central Iraq’s first commercial mobile network in December 2003. Roughly a year later, Iraqna’s license became a nationwide license and the company has since expanded its network to offer services throughout Iraq, investing over US$360 million in its GSM network and serving over 2.8 million active subscribers as of June 30th 2007. Orascom Telecom’s Chairman Naguib Sawiris also told Reuters at the weekend it will probably sell its Algerian fixed-line joint venture Lacom to a Palestinian-Jordanian company, and is mulling expansion in Asia, including North Korea.