Mobily - Saudi Arabia

Mobily (Arabic: موبايلي‎) is the trade name of Saudi Arabia's second Telecommunications company, Etihad-Etisalat consortium (Arabic: اتحاد اتصالات‎). The company, as the winning bidder for Saudi Arabia's second GSM licence, provides mobile telecom services nationwide, breaking Saudi Telecom's monopoly in the wireless business. The company launched 3.5G services on the 27th of June 2006.

Ownership

The consortium is led by UAE firm Etisalat who owns 35%, with 45% held by 6 strategic local partners. The remaining 20% was put up for public subscription in an IPO that was massively oversubscribed.

Growth

The GSM Associations "GSM Association Newsletter" September 2005 edition described Mobily as the fastest growing mobile operator in the Middle East & North Africa. In 2006, Mobily reached more than 4,800,000 subscribers. As of 20 January 2007, mobily had 6 million subscribers and 0.5 million 3G users.

Mobily introduced in 2004 the first telecommunication franchise business model in the Gulf Region, the Fully Branded outlet-(FBO), assuring rapid and cost effective expansion of its network of outlets.

Since entering the Saudi market in 2004 Mobily adopted a solid expansion strategy, based on a direct and indirect sales channels. This strategy allowed Mobily to quickly expand and establish the Mobily Brand throughout Saudi Arabia, and as a result achieve its set target for 2006, both in terms of sales and revenue targets.

The success over the last two years has been achieved through the efforts of all Mobily’s employees, including efforts of a professional and ambitious sales team via its own flagship branches, Fully Branded Outlets, Co-Branded outlets, Kiosks and thousands of dealers scattered throughout the country, covering the majority of the population.

This network of outlets and dealers was a major factor in mobilys' rapid growth and customer acquisition. As a result Mobily has earned a significant market share since launching operations on May 25, 2005.

Even with the successes over the last two years the sales department continues to look to the future with a strong commitment to continue to introduce new products and services as they are developed through its current and future retail outlets with a vision to make the Brand available ubiquitously, making Mobily services easily accessible to more and more of the country’s population.

Mobily has launched a mobile push-to-talk service (PTT) under the brand name 'Mobily Hawwel' in Saudi Arabia. The PTT service provides users with a different user experience to the traditional voice service, delivering a 'walkie-talkie' like experience - only one person can talk at a time. However, it is not limited in distance as with normal walkie-talkies, as the conversation is carried across the mobile GSM network. This service is being offered for the first time in the country.

The service can provide a one to one voice service or up to 10 people at the same time as group calling, allowing a user to know who is online through small icons appearing with certain colours. Mobily said that the service will be available for post-paid and pre-paid subscribers at monthly fees. Mobily Hawwel conversations are encrypted over GPRS data or 3G network to avoid cross-talk or listening-in.

This will be accomplished with the execution of an ambitious expansion plans for its own network of flagships, as well as introducing a new cost effective franchise retail concept (Mini-FBO).

The new concept (Mini-FBO) will complement the existing Mobily retail and channel partner outlets, and will cover more than 60 cities and towns, which will help achieve its targets, both in terms of sales and customer experience. Those outlets, as is the case with the Mobily flagships, will provide the full range of products and services to the current and future customers of Mobily.

The full efforts of the sales team, as it relates to the ongoing expansion plan, will focus on achieving the targets set by the company, to lead all the GSM operators in Saudi Arabia and the region, in terms of customers acquisition, service excellence and efficiency, taking advantage of Mobily’s commitment to always deploy cutting edge technology and solutions to it’s customers. (Commercial Support - Projects ).

Network Technology
Network Status Date
GSM900 Live/Active May, 2005
3.5G Live/Active Summer, 2006