IHS Global Insight Perspective | |
Significance | Mobily is leading the way in mobile broadband in Saudi Arabia; it is benefiting from the increase in business users and the very high number of youths which make up the Saudi population keen to take advantage of mobile data services. |
Implications | The operator has outperformed the incumbent; however, it faces tough competition from Zain which has the advantage of its One Network. |
Outlook | The operator is expanding its broadband coverage for mobile but is also offering very high speeds and increased coverage for mobile broadband via USB modems. |
Etisalat-owned operator Mobily has announced it is the first to use Evolved High-Speed Packet Access (HSPA+) in Saudi Arabia on its 3.75G network, Reuters reports. The service is available in 337 areas in the country costing US$150 million to roll out. The service is a key enabler of mobile Internet offering download speeds of 21.6Mbps essential to compete with offerings from Saudi Telecommunications Company (STC) and new entrant Zain.
Outlook and Implications
Saudi Arabia has some of the largest operators in the region providing mobile services; Zain, which launched just over a year ago, not only provides mobile Internet services but also joins its customers to its One Network allowing them to make local rate calls in which ever countries they roam in that are in the One Network.
Up until now Mobily has been offering services the country’s most populated areas. The operator is planning to offer a USB modem which will allow its customers to use the Internet via their laptops and increase coverage to in Jeddah, Makkah, Madina, Dammam, and Dhahran.
Mobily has rapidly increased its customer base which is now almost level with the incumbent STC; however, it now has to compete with Zain. In 2008, Mobily announced it had 266,000 broadband subscribers, an increase of 264% year-on-year.