RIYADH, 19 December 2005 — The Saudi Telecom Co. (STC) announced yesterday that it has 11 million mobile subscribers, making it the largest telecom provider in the region.
The number surpasses the combined total mobile subscribers of all other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries and gives the company a total market penetration of 57.1 percent.
STC CEO Khalid Al-Molhem said that the company marked a record breaking 1.4 million new customers and has grown by 15 percent in the month of November alone in spite of competition from other mobile service providers in the Kingdom. He added that his company’s strategy includes focusing on the next generation of potential customers.
The STC began offering mobile services to customers in 1998 under the name Al-Jawal, and closed that year with 600,000 subscribers. That number grew to 1.4 million subscribers by the end of 2000. In 2002, the number of subscribers had soared to five million.
Saad Al Qahtani, the general manager of corporate communications and marketing support, attributed part of the subscribers’ growth to STC’s loyal customers.
“Without them we would never have achieved so much success,” Al-Qahtani said, adding that the company would be launching a nationwide campaign to celebrate the company’s robust growth.
