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January 11, 2006
Suadi Arabia a major mobile phone growth market
Arab News: JEDDAH, 9 January 2006 — Mobile phones have transformed Saudi Arabia's telecom market thanks to huge investments that it continues to attract.
The Kingdom has emerged as the second biggest mobile market in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. This market has also experienced strong growth over the last three years.
The cellular market is booming not only in the Kingdom but in the entire Middle East as well, and the region is tipped to overtake Asia-Pacific in mobile penetration rate, according to market leaders.
Saudi mobile telecommunications operator Ettihad Etisalat's Mobily service, which began operations in the Kingdom last spring, signed up one million subscribers by the end of 2005 after successfully bidding $3.2 billion to gain the Kingdom's second mobile phone license late last year.
The Kingdom already comprises the largest telecommunications market in the Gulf and is one of the fastest growing in the Middle East. The sector, which has some four million fixed lines and eight million mobile lines, has been expanding at a rate of 30 percent a year.
The region's mobile market reached a new record in 2005, as a massive 20.6 million new subscribers took up a cellular service. "This boosted mobile subscriber rates across the Middle East by 48 percent, bringing the total cellular subscriber base to 62.9 million by the end of 2005," said Francis who has also authored the Middle East Telecommunications 2005 to 2010 report.
Posted by admin at January 11, 2006 02:55 AM