JEDDAH, 11 December 2003 — Saudi Telecom will introduce a “Pilgrim’s Mobile” service during the coming Haj season, according to the company’s president Khaled Al-Mulhem. “Chips for the new service will be marketed during the Haj season for a limited period,” he said. He urged private companies to supply mobile handsets to pilgrims at reasonable rates.
More than two million pilgrims — with some 1.5 million from abroad — are expected for Haj this year. Mobile phones have been found to be extremely useful for pilgrims to contact their families and also to locate fellow pilgrims.
The STC chief also announced plans to improve mobile phone services during the Haj, expanding the network’s capacity to make more calls. Al-Mulhem said that the company would soon introduce a new service for businessmen to help them identify callers when their mobiles are switched off. “The new service will be launched shortly as final tests have already been carried out,” the STC chief said.
Al-Mulhem said the company was making progress in the areas of services and mobile phones. The number of mobile phone subscribers had increased to more than seven million.
“In the future, photo services will be added to mobile service,” he said. The number of land phone subscribers had jumped from 1.7 million to more than seven million.
Al-Mulhem ruled out foreign companies receiving a greater share in the Kingdom’s mobile market after opening up the sector to competition.
“STC intends to wholesale its services to competing companies which in turn will be able to develop these services,” Al-Riyadh Arabic daily quoted Al-Mulhem as saying. Saudi Telecom has established state-of-the-art infrastructure facilities, covering an area of 16,500 sq. km, he said.
STC reported a 128 percent increase in net income — SR6.55 billion — in the first nine months of this year compared to SR2.86 billion for the same period last year. Net income for the third quarter rose to SR2.40 billion, up 54 percent over the same period in 2002. Operating income increased to SR20.05 billion, a 14 percent increase from the SR17.49 billion in the corresponding period in 2002.
