Vodafone under fire over unmet Egypt pledges

The London-listed company hit the headlines in January 2011 after it shut down its Egyptian network during the uprising against former president Hosni Mubarak, and sent propaganda messages by text to its customers.

Human rights campaigners lambasted the move, which prevented Vodafone’s Egyptian customers from making any calls for 24 hours, or using the internet over their mobiles for five days.

The move has since proved a considerable drag on Vodafone’s growth in Egypt. The company had been adding more than 3m customers per quarter before the uprising, but this figure plummeted to just over 500,000 in the three months after the riots and had only returned to 733,000 in the three months to 30 September 2012, the last data available.

Vodafone said at the time of the uprising that it had no choice but to shut the service down under the rules which allow it or any other mobile operator to provide a service in Egypt. Similar rules exist in many other countries.

However, the company pledged to address the situation by forming a cross-industry group with other telecoms companies which would agree a set of standards for operating in different countries without violating human rights.