Mobinil, the leading mobile operator in Egypt by subscribers, will pay a dividend of 7.5 Egyptian pounds per share for the second half of 2009, it said on Wednesday. This brings the total dividend for the whole of 2009 to 9.5 pounds. "There will be 750 million pounds of dividends for shareholders," Chairman Alex Shalaby said at a shareholders meeting. He added that employees would also be paid 145 million pounds as a profit share. Mobinil has a total 100 million shares oustanding. The number of mobile phone subscriptions in Egypt rose to 55.848 million in January from 55.352 million in December, a government website said. Some 496,000 subscribers were added in January, down from 1.67 million additions in December, the government-run Egyptian Cabinet Information and Decision Support Centre said on its website (www.eip.gov.eg). A year ago the three mobile companies - Mobinil, Vodafone Egypt and Etisalat Egypt - had 42.473 million subscribers in Egypt, which has a population of about 78 million.