RIYADH, 25 May 2008 — In a major move to provide better services to individual and corporate customers, Etihad Etisalat (Mobily) has announced plans to invest SR2.4 billion that includes the SR1.5 billion acquisition of Bayanat Al-Oula, a local company that has license to offer Wimax services. “The Mobily’s mission is to provide the best services without indulging in price war with other players entering into the local market,” said Khalid Omar Al-Kaf, Mobily’s chief executive officer.

Addressing a crowded press conference on the occasion of the third anniversary of Mobily’s operations here yesterday, Al-Kaf said that “the acquisition of data communication infrastructure company Bayanat Al Oula would help Mobily to expand its growing ‘high speed packet access’ (HSPA) network much faster, and expand the variety of broadband Internet technologies by offering its customer-base connectivity based on Wimax.”

The luncheon press meeting was attended by a large number of Mobily executives including Ahmed Al-Hashmi, Mobily’s deputy chief marketing officer; Hamoud B. Al-Ghobaini, PR director and Abdullah Mutlaq Al-Wadani, media relations manager. The Mobily executives gave an overview of the operations of Mobily, whose stake in a 12,000 kilometer national fiberoptic network has increased from 33.3 percent to 66.6 percent followng the acquisition of Bayanat.

Referring to another major investment being made by Mobily, Al-Kaf said that “we were investing one billion Saudi riyals to expand the third generation mobile services across the Kingdom.”

“We are targeting to expand broadband services since the Kingdom has a mere 2.5 percent broadband penetration rate.” To this end, he noted that Mobily now covers 97 percent of all populated areas of Saudi Arabia after investing some SR7 billions in its network in the past.

“Moreover, Mobily now has 5,400 points of sale spread across the Kingdom, 215 of which are major outlets fitted with the latest technologies,” said Al-Kaf, adding that the company has been pursuing an ambitioous expansion plan to open POSs as part of its “Ghataynaha” (we covered it) campaign. At the moment, Mobily network itself reaches 115 cities, towns and villages, 70 of which have HSxPA based coverage.

Asked about new plans and projects besides the investments being made, Mobily chief pointed out that the company has so far launched 267 value-added services. He said that many services like multimedia messaging services (MMS), international roaming for prepaid subscribers and ring back tone (RBT) service were for the first time launched by Mobily. He said that “Mobily has also invested SR400 million in a cable tying the Kingdom to Asia and Europe to bolster its two-thirds share in the one billion Saudi riyal national fiber optic network.”

In fact, Mobily investments in the Kingdom will exceed SR7 billion until this year. It is now making fresh investments to bolster its presence and to consolidate its leadership position in the market, where two major players have been dominating until today. Counting the achievements of Mobily, Al-Hashmi said that it became the first Saudi mobile operator to launch in-flight calls aboard select airlines.

Referring to the reach of Mobily with reference to its marketing campaigns, Al-Hashmi pointed out that “the Mobily’s network had touched upon areas in the Kingdom that had never seen any form of telecommunication service or had limited mobile coverage at best.”

Mobily has also been supporting and sponsoring charity and sports programs as part of its corporate social responsibililty. It has signed a SR200 million deal with Al-Hilal Club for soccer.