JEDDAH, 17 October 2005 — Mobile users are in for some gains from an ongoing competition between Saudi Arabia’s two mobile telecommunications operators.
Al Jawal, the cellular arm of Saudi Telecom Company (STC), is battling for customers with Etihad Etisalat/Mobily, which claims to have signed up one million subscribers much before the targeted 2005-end period. Etihad Etisalat won the Kingdom’s second mobile phone license late last year.
One major gain for existing Al Jawal users is that they will have the advantage of an extended period of use of Sawa cards that are available in SR50, SR100 and SR300 denominations.
The competition has spurred Jawal to fast track introduction of the Kingdom’s first multimedia messaging service (MMS) able to transmit video, pictures, voice, sound as well as text messages.
Al Jawal has just launched “Bebalash wa Akthar” (free and more), a Kingdomwide marketing and sales promotion. “This campaign is an extension of the successful Bebalash campaign conducted last year,” said STC Vice Chairman Saud ibn Majid Al-Daweesh. During the new promotion, which will end on Dec. 7 free offers are available.
During the campaign, a new user can obtain an Al Jawal SIM card with an additional SR50 free credit or can buy a Sawa SIM card for SR130 but receive a calling value balance of SR200, which represents a free credit of SR70. In addition, the validity period of a new Sawa SIM card will be doubled from two to four months.
For Sawa rechargeable cards, the validity period will increase from 10 to 30 days for the SR50 card, from 30 to 90 days for the SR100 card, and from six months to one year (send/receive) for the SR300 card (plus SR33 free credit) both during the campaign period and thereafter.
On Saturday Mobily launched a special Ramadan promotion offering its PrePaid customers an incentive to top up their accounts and the company hopes it will turn initial subscribers into mid- to long-term customers.
During the promotion period which ends on Nov. 5, Mobily will provide a 34 percent bonus to all customers on recharge. All denominations of scratch card from SR30 to SR240 are covered. The same rule applies for all other recharge methods, such as M-Pay and Siebel.
“The objective of the campaign is to extend benefits to existing customers and also stimulate a new Al Jawal and Sawa customers thereby expanding the customer base and introduce them to Al Jawal’s innovative services,” he said.
“The new offers are also aimed to provide a stimulus to the Al Jawal authorized agencies and the Al Jawal/Saudi Telecom outlets,” Al-Daweesh said.
According to Al-Daweesh, Al Jawal has the largest mobile network in the Arab world in terms of network coverage and customer numbers. This year, it introduced many of its “innovative” services including the multimedia message service (MMS), “family and friends,” “Awalnet easy” and “Abwab service.”
According to one of Ettihad Etisalat’s corporate executives, the company, a joint venture of Saudi interests and the UAE telecoms operator Etisalat, also intends to offer a range of third generation mobile services covering the whole of the Kingdom.
Mobile phones have hugely altered the Kingdom’s telecommunications market. The explosion in services began in 1994 with introduction of global system for mobiles (GSM) services. Since then, from a low base of a few thousand subscribers, the number has soared to exceed the eight million mark accounting for more than 70 percent of all telephone subscribers in the Kingdom.
With its population of about 23 million, the Kingdom is the largest telecommunications market in the Gulf and is one of the fastest growing in the Middle East. The sector, which has more than four million fixed lines and eight million mobile lines, has been expanding at a rate of 30 percent a year.
