JEDDAH, 1 February 2005 — Phone cabins have become a losing business and as a result an estimated 3,000 of them are on the verge of closure. The crisis has been brought about by the recent reduction in international call rates.
Many citizens and expatriates have stopped going to phone cabins, preferring to use other means of communication that have become available these days such as the Internet and SAWA cards, especially after the Saudi Telecom Company (STC) started offering SR50 phone card and a 50 percent discount on Net phone service.
Many investors prefer to stay out of business rather than suffer huge financial losses. Phone cabin owners and Saudis who run them are complaining about recurring losses over the past few weeks, according to Al-Madinah newspaper.
“I used to earn between SR2,000 and SR2,500 a month. These days as a result of the steep fall in daily collection we are forced to take a pay cut,” Musa Al-Fifi, who is a call cabin employee in Sharafiya neighborhood in Jeddah, told the newspaper.
“We are getting SR1,500 a month for working 10 hours seven days a week. I am sure that as business turnover declines our salaries will be further reduced to SR1,000 a month. I am not complaining because I am not qualified to work anywhere else. The future of those working in this line of business is becoming very bleak. If we commit a small mistake, we are fired immediately without any questions asked. This business is becoming a headache for the owners and they will do anything to reduce overheads,” Al-Fifi added.
Rabeh Al-Harbi, a graduate in communications, said, “I worked in a phone cabin after I graduated because that was the only job available at the time. I earn SR1,500 a month and I think I will quit if the salary is reduced again. I have been working here for eight months and I am seeing the daily income declining because of the SR50 SAWA cards. On a particular day, we only made SR45 after eight hours of work. In the past, we used to make SR3,000 a day during the Haj season”.
Deef Al-Ghamdi, a call cabin investor, said, “The income was attractive seven years ago. I used to own 23 phone cabins and I was making SR14,000 daily out of only one cabin. Now, the daily income has dropped to SR2,000 for one cabin and it is further declining. I had to sell some of my phone cabins just to reduce costs. Now I only have 13 cabins and I am thinking of closing some of them to further reduce costs. I expect to close 60 percent of the stores that I own if STC continues with the same policy and does not do anything to motivate investors to stay in business. The least STC can do is allow us to sell SAWA cards”.
