Orascom Telecom says its pioneering mobile network in North Korea  – Koryolink – hit 100,000 subscribers by year-end 2009 and is on track to add “millions” over the next five years. “The number [of subscribers in 2010] will be big enough to make Koryolink look like a significant company for us because the revenues per customer are interesting and we believe that this business will have customers in the millions within the next four or five years,” Orascom CEO Khaled Bichara told the Financial Times in an interview. He did not put a figure on its target for this year, noting only that it will be “a big milestone.” Bichara added that subscriber take-up of the service to date was proof that the service had not been limited to just the elite members of the military and communist party in the isolated state, as many had feared. The report notes that Koryolink may benefit from the efforts of the notoriously totalitarian state to open itself up to foreign investment after years of international isolation. “We see that there is a very big plan for an economic boom,” said Bichara. “They are really looking to have, by 2012, a much stronger economy. We believe that mobiles and eventually international communication will definitely be part of this.”

Koryolink launched in North Korea in December 2008, initially in Pyongyang, the capital city, and Nampo, the capital’s port, However, Bichara says the government is currently laying fibre-optic cables in the provinces, which will allow further expansion. Koryolink is 75-percent owned by Orascom, while the remainder is held by Korea Post & Telecommunications Corp, the state fixed-line provider. The mobile network is currently the only one in the country after an earlier network was shut down five years ago. Read our recent analysis on Koryolink here.