JEDDAH, 4 December 2004 — The Saudi Telecom Company announced yesterday that it was slashing from tomorrow (Dec. 5) charges of SAWA to SAWA local calls by 29 percent from SR1.2 to 85 halalas per minute and by 16.5 percent (from SR1.2 to SR1.00) for local calls outside the network including land phones and Etisalat network.
Saud ibn Majed Al-Duwaish, vice chairman of STC and head of ALJAWAL (mobile phone network), said the company would also cut installation fee for ordinary and family mobiles from SR100 to SR50 and reinstallation fee for mobiles from SR100 to SR50. Local SMS rates will be brought down from 50 halalas to 25 halalas and international SMS from 70 to 60 halalas, he added.
Duwaish also announced the launch of new SAWA recharge cards in SR50 and SR300 denominations. The SR300 recharge card will have a validity of 12 months, specifically six months for sending and 12 months for receiving, and will credit the customer’s account with 11 percent free call units. The SR50 card will have a validity of ten days.
“The new cuts are offered by ALJAWAL as part of a regular revising of service charges in order to reduce the cost of users and attract clients,” Duwaish said. The number of mobile phone subscribers in the Kingdom has soared to nine million, the largest in the Arab world.
The Kingdom’s telecom giant announced in October its plan to cut various service charges within two months. It slashed charges of domestic telephone calls from 40 halalas to 10 halalas per minute.
It also cut Internet service charges by offering two new packages.
In the first package, clients will get direct access to the Internet by paying five halalas per minute.
It is expected that there will be an announcement soon about international call rate discounts for all STC services.
Saudi Telecom posted a net income of SR7.67 billion for the nine months ending Sept. 30 of this year compared to SR6.54 billion during the same period last year. STC Chairman Khaled Al-Melhem said the figure confirmed the company’s solid financial position.
He said these good results were achieved despite the substantial discounts offered by the company in telephone and Internet charges.
Al-Melhem said the arrival of new mobile service providers in the market would not affect the market since the mobile market in the Kingdom is fast growing and can accommodate future competitors.
