Muhammed Al-Jasser said 7,000 SIM cards had been distributed already since the service was launched. He was speaking at the launch ceremony at the Ritz Carlton hotel in Bahrain, attended by Bahrain Premier Prince Khalifa Bin Salman Bin Khalifa.
Although STC is only the third mobile operator to start providing a service in Bahrain, Al-Jasser was confident the company's state-of-the-art technology would help them do well.
"We have received an unprecedented response from the local market, which has encouraged us to forge ahead," he said.
According to him, the mobile telecommunications market has witnessed a 17.5 percent growth in Bahrain since 2002. He added that bilateral trade between the Kingdom and Bahrain has also increased by 11.2 percent to SR42 billion.
"This is due to the historical ties of brotherhood and love between the leaders and people of both countries," said Al-Jasser, who is also the governor of the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA).
Around one million people from Saudi Arabia visit Bahrain every year and 80 percent of them are STC subscribers, according to the company's CEO Saud Al-Daweesh.
He said that STC has a customer base of 120 million users in all parts of the world, including 21 million in the Kingdom.
Al-Daweesh said that the company hopes to capture a quarter of the market within five years. He also said the company has invested SR2 billion to set up the Viva Bahrain project in Manama and it will invest more depending on market response.
The company also plans to set up a unified network in all six GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) countries, he said. It will also seek the cooperation of other existing operators within the network to extend its services to the Middle East and North Africa region and South East Asia.
Viva has already recruited a large number of employees, most of whom are Bahrainis.
A Viva customer who buys a SIM card for BD2 will receive additional talk time equivalent to the purchased amount.
Each time a SIM is recharged, a 24 percent increase on the recharge value will be added to the account. Viva subscribers can call friends and families who have STC numbers in Saudi Arabia free of charge.
