Crackdown on illegal SIMs causes 1.9% drop in mobile subscriptions

The number of mobile services subscribers fell by 1.92 percent to 51 million at the end of the second quarter of this year, compared to 52 million in the same period last year, said sources at the Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC).
The drop in subscribers has been attributed to a decision taken by the CITC at the end of 2012 to link the recharging of pre-paid SIM cards with the identity numbers of users. Following this decision, telecom companies forced customers to update their information and later canceled huge numbers of unknown SIM cards.
The penetration rate of mobile services in the population reached 169 percent at the end of the second quarter, the sources were quoted as saying recently.
There were 4.7 million fixed, or landlines, at the end of the second quarter of this year, of which 3.3 million were allocated to the residential sector, or 70 percent of the lines. The rate of household penetration stood at nearly 62.6 percent.
Subscribers to broadband services through the mobile telecommunications network reached 21 million at the end of the second quarter of this year, which brought the penetration rate to 68 percent of its population.
Based on a study by Google, the Kingdom is ranked third in the world in terms of smartphone penetration, which stands at 73 percent of its population.