Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday at Four Seasons Hotel here, Saad Al-Barrak, Zain's chief executive officer, said that the company is content with its progress in the Kingdom, but aims to achieve higher targets in years to come.

Last year, he said, Zain gained 6 million customers and earned $800 million. By virtue of the company's unique services, he said, the company hopes to net $1.4 billion in revenue with an estimated customer base of 7.4 million.

"We expect to complete the capital increase before the end of 2010," he said, adding that he would seek to convert a $577 million loan into equity in the firm, which is 25 percent owned by Kuwait's Zain, now in talks to sell parts of its African operations to India's Bharti Airtel.

The CEO said the success of the company was mainly due to its attractive services offered to expatriate customers to speak to their families at competitive rates during the weekends.

Zain has concluded international roaming agreements with more than 300 operators around the world and Zain Saudi Arabia is the first telecommunications company in the Kingdom to implement and deliver services that comply with ISO certificate requirements.

Answering a question on free international roaming charges, Al-Barrak said, "We are the pioneers of this project and we have been offering this service from the time of its inception through the one network system."

He added that he is not much concerned about the Communications and Information Technology Commission's (CITC) recent proposal as Zain will win.

Under its One Network, Zain's customers who travel to six countries - Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Sudan and Iraq - can make calls at local call rates and receive them for free.

CITC recently requested mobile operators to end free international roaming for received calls to their customers.