In less than six months of the launch of Mobily services on May 25, its customers have reached two million in all the prepaid and postpaid packages, beating the record in the Middle East, according to the Arab Advisory Organization.
Today, Mobily network covers 33 cities, as against 14 cities that was committed to be covered in the first six months of operation before obtaining the license. This is in addition to the national roaming agreements, signed with other operators, to cover the highways and the rest of the Kingdom.
“Mobily’s plan is to install 2,200 base stations by the end of its first year of operation, which includes all the Kingdom’s cities and major highways,” Humoud Al-Ghobaini, officer-in charge, corporate communications, said. “With its major contractors Alcatel, Motorola, Ericsson and Huwawie, Mobily is working round the clock to complete the second phase of the network, which includes covering 90 percent of the populated areas of the Kingdom,” he added.
In terms of services, Mobily was also the first mobile operator in the Kingdom that introduced the added value services of MMS, locations based service (LBS), international roaming for prepaid SIM cards in addition to GPRS roaming with a speed of 200 kb per second, as well as other services such as “kelmeni” (call me), enabling disconnected mobile to send free SMS.
Mobily claims to have offered very competitive international rates in all its prepaid packages (2) and postpaid packages (5).
Ahmed Al-Hosani, director, marketing said Mobily’s points of sales were available in more than 1,600 locations in the Kingdom, in the form of Mobily mega centers, flagships, fully branded stores, co-branded stores, and non-branded stores. Mobily’s distributors and dealers handle the last three.
Mobily was also the first mobile operator in the Kingdom that introduced the MMS service that enables the customers to send pictures, sound files and even short video clips. Mobily has introduced the full international roaming services for the prepaid SIM cards in several countries. The most recent one was Egypt.
The full roaming includes SMS, MMS and GPRS. Now, with Mobily prepaid cards “Mobily Wafer” and “Mobily Anees,” customers can make and receive phone calls, send and recharge their prepaid cards, in Bahrain, but in UAE they can also utilize MMS and GPRS.
The international full roaming will be extended to include many countries around the world in the near future. Meanwhile, Mobily has recently signed roaming agreements for postpaid card users with more than 214 mobile operators in the world, covering more than 113 countries. The number will certainly increase soon, and more added values services will be included to provide Mobily customers with many choices.
Mobily activates the roaming service for all customers in prepaid and postpaid cards, and also enables them to contact customer services while they are abroad at the number +966-56-010-1100.
Mobily is the official brand name of Etihad Etisalat, the second mobile service provider in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Established in accordance with a 2004 royal decree, the ownership of the company is two-fold — a Saudi ownership, comprising public investors holding 20 percent of the company’s shareholding, with private investors owning a 45 percent stake. The Etisalat of the UAE owns the balance of 35 percent.