UPDATE 1-Maroc Telecom 2007 net profit rises 19 pct

(Adds chairman comments from press conference)

By Tom Pfeiffer

RABAT, Feb 22 (Reuters) - Maroc Telecom (IAM.CS), Morocco's dominant telecoms company, reported a 19 percent rise in 2007 net profit on Friday and forecast further growth this year as falling charges encourage more Moroccans to use mobile phones.

Net profit rose to 8.033 billion Moroccan dirhams ($1.05 billion), while operating profit rose 22 percent to 12.2 billion.

French media and telecoms group Vivendi (VIV.PA) owns 53 percent of Maroc Telecom while the Moroccan state owns 30 percent.

The company proposed a dividend of 9.20 dirhams a share -- representing its entire distributable profit for 2007 -- and forecast revenue growth of more than 7 percent for 2008 and operating profit growth of more than 9 percent.

Despite a severe drought last year that depressed household incomes in the north African country, mobile phone use grew 30 percent from 2006 as airtime prices dipped 25 percent, Chairman Abdeslam Ahizoune told reporters in Rabat.

The company, which competes with Spanish-Portuguese venture Meditel and with Wana owned by national conglomerate ONA (ONA.CS), added 420 mobile base stations last year, taking coverage to 98 percent of the population.

The firm's operating margin gained 4.6 points to 44.4 percent, with mobile operations representing almost two thirds of sales.

"Many people thought the market was becoming mature but in fact we witnessed growing interest by Moroccan mobile clients and growth was even stronger than in 2006," Ahizoune said.

The capacity of Morocco's international Internet connection was doubled to 25 gigabits per second (Gbps), providing additional bandwidth for new business clients setting up outsourcing operations in the country.

Ahizoune said the company now faced a new obstacle to growth because the Moroccan competition authorities had opposed its move to lower Internet connection prices unless its competitors follow suit.

"We need to be able to lose money on this segment of the market because we first need to create this market," he said.

The picture for Maroc Telecom's foreign operations was mixed, with Mauritania and Burkina Faso performing well but its more recent acquisition of Gabon Telecom undergoing a restructuring amid fierce opposition from local unions.

Ahizoune said Maroc Telecom planned to invest 5.2 billion dirhams this year, up from 4.2 billion in 2007, and had its eye out for more acquisitions abroad.

"This year Mali is preparing the privatisation of its operator and we will look closely at that but we will also look at others," he said.

Maroc Telecom shares, which have surged 27 percent this year in anticipation of the results, were up 0.14 percent at 185.4 dirhams in Casablanca at 1459 GMT. (Reporting by Tom Pfeiffer in Rabat and Sudip Kar-Gupta in Paris; editing by Rory Channing)