This is in addition to the large number of Saudi engineers and graduates trained earlier by the company in a staggered schedule over the last 10 years.

Ali Eid, president of Ericsson AB Saudi Arabia, announced at a press conference at the local Radisson Blu Hotel plans to build long-term partnerships to expand the Kingdom’s telecommunications infrastructure, including development of existing networks to provide more bandwidth.

Top Ericsson executives including Fida Kibbi, Ericsson's regional chief of media relations, were also present.

“There are many young Saudis graduating from the universities … we believe that Ericsson is an ideal and attractive place for them to work and develop their skills further,” said Eid.

On Ericsson's commitment to drive a networked society, he said the company would continue to play an active role in the fast-growing telecommunications industry with its innovative range of products and solutions.

“A high level of ICT maturity has led to the emergence of a ‘networked society’ in Saudi Arabia,” he said. “To enable a networked society, today’s networks need to be developed to provide more and more bandwidth,” said the Ericsson chief.

He predicted that there would be a tremendous amount of demand for broadband access in Saudi Arabia being driven by a combination of increasing Internet literacy and the fact consumers are intent on accessing rich online content.

Ericsson together with the Kingdom’s leading operators is working to ensure that Saudi consumers’ demands are met, he added.

He said that the Ericsson's relationship with Saudi Arabia goes back over 30 years and includes a number of successful projects and partnerships with leading operators. The company has played an important role in expanding the country’s mobile network infrastructure and modernizing operator systems.

Ericsson is the leader in 2G, 3G and 4G mobile technologies, and provides support for networks with over 2 billion subscribers, besides being the leader in offering different telecommunication services.

The Sony Ericsson and ST-Ericsson joint ventures provide consumers with feature-rich personal mobile devices. With a presence in 175 countries, Stockholm-based Ericsson has 90,000 employees across the world and its total revenue exceeded $28 billion in 2010.