Middle Eastern Operators Endorse Customer Value, Choice

Dubai: One week until the 13th annual GSM>3G Middle East- Towards a Broadband World Conference which will be held on Dec. 15-16 at the Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Centre. It will be addressing convergence and new revenue streams and technological developments for operators in a market with high mobile penetration.

In a recent interview with Informa Telecoms and Media, Dr. Marwan Al-Ahmadi, CEO of Zain Saudi Arabia (participant in the conference), pointed to the opportunities created by the combination of Saudi Arabia's very low broadband penetration and its youthful, with 50% below the age of 15 and 67% below the age of 25. That is something that number two operator, Mobily, has capitalized on to achieve one of the largest HSPA customer bases in the world at the end of 1Q08, with an estimated 2.64 million subscriptions, according to Informa Telecoms and Media.
"It's a young nation," says Dr. Marwan Al-Ahmadi. "And these people, their consumption of information and telecommunication services is much higher than older people." Dr. Marwan Al-Ahmadi is scheduled to speak on day 2.

Another group involved closely with this year's GSM>3G Middle East Conference is Etisalat. As the UAE's leading telecom service provider, and an endorsing sponsor of the event, Etisalat has subsidiaries in markets including Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Egypt. Representing the group on the panel of speakers will be Nasser Bin Obood, Chief Corporate Affairs Officer and Ali Amiri, Executive Vice President Carrier and Wholesale.
A recent mobile market update by Informa Telecoms and Media found that although Etisalat's net additions were 4.8% lower than in 2Q07, they maintained their leadership with 6.8 million subscriptions by the end of 2Q08. Of these 1.9 million were 3G subscriptions.

A further addition to the speaker panel from outside the Middle East region is Anthony Corbett, Head of M&A at leading Russian mobile operator Vimpelcom. Vimpelcom has a long-established footprint across a number of less-highly penetrated markets across Central Asia and has more recently been active in SE Asia. Corbett is therefore well-placed to contribute to a roundtable discussion focused on the exploitation of further growth opportunities in emerging markets, joining co-panelists from Vodafone and Turkcell.