JEDDAH, 14 December 2006 — Egyptian Orascom Telecom is striving to win the bid for the third Saudi mobile service company that is expected to be launched soon.
A Saudi source said that he hoped that the consortium led by Orascom, a leading Arab company with experience in several Asian and African countries including Pakistan, Iraq, and Egypt, stood a 60 percent success chance in its bid to enter the Kingdom’s mobile service industry. Orascom’s move to form a consortium with Saudi investors was announced recently in a press conference in Cairo by Naguib Saweras, chairman of the board of directors. Naguib said that preliminary viability studies showed that a third mobile company would get 5 million Saudi subscribers.
The source expects tough competition from the other two mobile companies in the Kingdom. With the entry of a third company, the cost of mobile calls in the Kingdom, is expected to come down considerably.
In a related development, the Kingdom aims to launch in early 2007 a new landline company for which four Saudi alliances are bidding with the collaboration of foreign companies. Awwal.Net, a subsidiary of the Faisaliah Group, is leading the Saudi companies bidding for the company. Awwal.Net is currently holding talks with a European company, which has vast experience in the area of telecommunication and information technology worldwide.
