Nawras, which is 55 per cent owned by Qtel, almost doubled its number of customers during 2007.

Qtel will announce that Nawras has become profitable when it announces its own annual results at the end of February.

The Qatari parent company has not disclosed Nawras’s financial results since the end of 2006 when it was still a loss-making operation.

Qtel consolidates the financial results for its non-Qatari businesses, making it difficult to analyse performance in individual countries.

During 2007, Qtel acquired stakes in Wataniya, a Kuwaiti operator, and Asiacell, a joint venture with some Kurdish businessmen in Iraq.