As of the first week of April, the Egyptian National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (NTRA) began to implement its decision to deactivate imported mobile phones whose customs fees remain outstanding.
The decision requires the four mobile network operators, Vodafone, Orange, Etisalat (now e&) and WE Telecom, to deactivate the lines associated with the codes on devices brought into Egypt after 1 January this year without paying the required customs duties.
When introducing the regulation in January, the NTRA gave a three-month grace period for phone owners to pay any outstanding duties and register imported devices on a platform devised for this purpose.
The measure, adopted in cooperation with the Egyptian Customs Authority, aims to regulate the mobile phone market, enforce customs compliance, and promote local manufacturing. New phones brought into Egypt are subject to a 38.5 per cent customs duty although there is an exemption for one phone for personal use per traveller upon entering the country.
If travellers bring in more than five phones, including the one for personal use, the phones will be considered commercial imports and subject to the relevant commercial laws and procedures. Owners of imported devices must register them using the Telephony app specially designed for this purpose.
The NTRA measure is intended to “both regulate the market and to uphold the principle of fair competition,” according to Ihab Said, head of the Telecommunications Division and Electronic Payment Services at the Federation of Egyptian Chambers of Commerce.
He said that the measure is timely, if late in coming, as it bolsters the government’s plans to stimulate domestic manufacturing. Now that it has been introduced, local mobile manufacturers should take it as a cue to gradually increase production to meet local demand which in turn will lead to a gradual decrease in the prices of locally produced or assembled phones, he added.
Mohamed Hedaya, deputy head of the Telecommunications and Mobiles Division at the Federation of Egyptian Chambers of Commerce, had a different view. He argued that local manufacturers have already received generous state facilities, such as access to land, export support, and exemptions from customs duties on production components. These facilities should induce the manufacturers to bring down the prices of their products immediately in conjunction with increasing their production to meet demand.
Hedaya also underscored the need for the NTRA to address certain glitches that have emerged in the Telephony app. These need to be resolved quickly to maintain the new measure’s credibility and transparency, he said, adding that sustaining these things is critical to preventing the measure from negatively affecting an already stagnant market due to the rising prices of both imported and domestically assembled phones.
Over the past five years, many international smart phone firms, such as Vivo, Nokia, Samsung, Oppo and Xiaomi, have opened assembly lines for their products in Egypt.
These assembly plants produce two to three million phones a year, according to Vice President of the Mobile Phones Division at the Cairo Chamber of Commerce Walid Ramadan in previous televised statements.
The domestic consumer market has a capacity of 18 to 20 million phones, with an average replacement cycle of three to four years, meaning a market shortage of around 10 million phones a year.
Ramadan observed that most of the imported phones that are required to pay customs duties are high-end models, whereas the domestic plants mostly produce more affordable low-end models. He urged domestic manufacturers to fill the market gap for high-end alternatives.
MP Maha Abdel-Nasser, a member of the parliament’s Telecommunications Committee, argued that the indicators show that the government’s policies to stimulate and encourage local manufacturers are already paying off in terms of meeting local demand as well as expanding export production for the African market.
The NTRA’s decision “safeguards the local industry and gives it room to bloom,” she said.
She also held that the question of the market gap for locally produced high-end phones was overstated, as their share of the market was never that large. There are many good local alternatives, and these can be made available in larger quantities and at more affordable prices by making it easier for manufacturers to import larger quantities of the input components, she said.
In this way they will be able to meet the demands of both the local and African markets and bring down prices as well.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 10 April, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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