Mobily Saudi broadband share grows

Dubai: Mobily, etisalat's Saudi Arabian subsidiary, now controls 70 per cent of the Saudi broadband market, the company said in a statement.

Etisalat chairman Mohammad Omran said the new strategy of Mobily for the next five years aims at strengthening its leadership in broadband services and applications, as a pioneer in this technology in the Middle East, in line with global trends in mobile communications.

"The new strategy will focus on the integration of communication services or what is referred to GED [Growth Efficiency Differentiation]," he said.

Omran said etisalat will utilise its know-how and experience to give Mobily its utmost support.

Successful investments

Omran described Mobily as one of the most successful investments for the group, commending the professionalism of Mobily's executive management and its vision that resulted in achieving significant growth for the company with net income of more than 3 billion Saudi riyals (Dh2.9 billion) in 2009.

Mobily successfully completed trials for the coming upgrade of its state of the art high speed packet access (HSPA+) network, testing speeds of 42 megabits per second (mbps).

The 42mbps speed, expected to be rolled out in major cities in the interim, will be the first major speed upgrade since Mobily became the first operator in the region to launch HSPA+ towards the end of 2009 at speeds of 21mbps, and closed the year with one million customers subscribed to its high-usage bundles, and an overall customer base of 18.2 million. Mobily's HSPA network now covers 90 per cent of all populated areas.