Tough competition

Arab telecom operators served 194.5 million cellular subscribers and 35 million mainlines as of June 2008. A report from Arab Advisers Group, “A Scorecard of Key Performance Indicators of Arab Telecom Operators 2008,” analyzes and ranks 30 fixed services operators and 50 cellular operators in nineteen Arab countries. ALJAWAL and MobiNil sustained their top rankings in the cellular sector at the end of the first half of 2008, with 17.8 million and 16.328 million subscribers respectively. Vodafone Egypt followed with 15.202 million subscribers.

The UAE recorded the highest cellular penetration rate of 198.6 percent followed by Saudi Arabia at 123.3 percent. The UAE also had the highest fixed line penetration rate of 29.4 percent. On the average revenue per use front, Qatar’s Qtel recorded the highest ARPU for fixed services, while Zain Kuwait recorded the highest ARPU for cellular services through June 2008.

“The Arab cellular markets continue to grow at a high pace, while the fixed line markets are either growing slowly or stagnating. By H1 2008, cellular operators added around 18 million subscribers while all the fixed line operators added a mere 1.4 million mainlines. Cellular operators in Egypt and Saudi Arabia recorded the highest subscriber additions by H1 2008. MobiNil topped the ranks with 2.121 million added subscribers by H1 2008. Competition in cellular services is a main driver for growth,” noted Issa Goussous, Sr. research analyst at Arab Advisers Group. “Several cellular operators recorded high growth rates by H1 2008. Al Madar Aljadid in Libya recorded the highest growth rate amongst all cellular operators, which stood at 57.1 percent, followed by the UAE’s du at 53.3 percent.”

Dell reorganizes setup

Dell will be reorganizing globally around three major business customer segments — large enterprise, public sector, and small and medium businesses. Dell’s consumer business, led by Ron Garriques, is already organized globally. Each group will possess greater global accountability and responsibility for responding to customer needs, and for anticipating and leading industry change. Dell has already begun the process of organizing people, functions and practices into the new global business units. Leading those units will be:

*Large Enterprise — Steve Schuckenbrock, currently president, Global Services, and chief information officer.

*Public Sector — Paul Bell, currently president, Dell Americas.

*Small and Medium Business — Steve Felice, based in Singapore, currently president, Dell Asia-Pacific and Japan.

Additionally, Mike Cannon, president, Global Operations, will retire from Dell and be succeeded by Jeff Clarke who, in addition to his responsibilities as head of Dell’s Business Client Product Group, will become vice chairman, Global Operations. Chief Marketing Officer Mark Jarvis will leave Dell this fiscal quarter replaced by Erin Nelson, formerly vice president of marketing, Dell Europe, Middle East and Africa.

Search in 2008

Google’s 2008 Year-End Zeitgeist offers information on the year’s major events and hottest trends based on global searches, as well as searches conducted in the UAE and 35 additional countries. Globally, in 2008 the fastest rising queries were Sarah Palin, Beijing 2008, Facebook login, Tuenti, Heath Ledger, Obama, Nasza Klasa, Wer Kennt Wen, euro 2008 and the Jonas Brothers. For the UAE, the fastest rising queries were Beijing 2008, Nasser Bin Zayed, Facebook, Bahrain Air, Obama, Hannah Montana, YouTube, Emirates ID, Atlantis Dubai and Heath Ledger.

Mobile gaming

According to the whitepaper, “Games Invade Mobile Space,” from Juniper Research, the mobile games industry is facing major difficulties. The low margins on mobile games — exacerbated by the fact that developers face the costs of porting games to multiple handsets — mean that games must sell significant volumes to break even. In most cases, these volumes are not being met, due to a further combination of factors including poor marketing and the simple fact that consumers do not know which games are available for their devices. Operators charge publishers high fees. Plus there is a growing belief amongst developers that Java, the main mobile games standard, has been taken to its limits.

Unfortunately the anticipated surge in mobile multiplayer games has failed to occur, due partly to the slower than anticipated deployment and adoption of 3G services but also to the excessive cost to the consumer of mobile data services. And while ad-funded games are achieving substantial download volumes, the adspend in the mobile games market remains comparatively low. Finally, there is a concern that the global economic slump might ultimately lead even the youth demographic — a key gaming market, and traditionally one of the least price sensitive groups — to be more reluctant to make casual gaming purchases.

Juniper found that these factors make for a gloomy industry prognosis in the short term and the future of mobile gaming could leave some gamers out in the cold. In its whitepaper the company noted that a number of publishers are seriously considering exiting, or at least substantially reducing their output of Java games in favor of iPhone titles. While this will mean more games for the iPhone, it means even less choice for the wider mobile gaming public, providing an even greater threat to medium-term growth.