LONDON-As the tech sector continues a shaky recovery and telecom companies in Europe and the United States offer nothing much to write home about, the Middle East continues its love affair with the mobile phone unabated, and its operators continue to see strong increases in subscriber numbers. During June and July alone, a number of cellular operators in the region have signed major deals for network expansion, with major vendors such as Motorola and Siemens reaping the benefits.
The Middle East market has also seen strong uptake of value-added and mobile messaging services, reinforcing views in a recent report from IDC that predicted the Middle East would be one of the regions where the uptake of wireless and professional services would be strongest. Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) would account for “the lion’s share” the demand for wireless professional services, the report said.
“The wireless industry, although not new, is still an emerging market, ” said Sophie Mayo, director of wireless and e-commerce implementation research at IDC. “The major forces at work in this ecosystem are devices, carriers, systems integrators, mobile middleware, applications providers, enterprises, mobile workers and consumers.”
Kuwaiti operator Wataniya ended June with the announcement that it signed a deal valued at around US$53.5 million with Siemens for the installation of a General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) network. The deal also covers extension of Watnayia’s value-added services in Kuwait.
Continuing the network expansion trend, Jordanian cellular service provider Fastlink announced in early July it had enlisted Motorola to expand its GPRS and GSM network in a deal worth US$29 million. The move is part of Fastlink’s strategy for continued network improvement and delivery of new services to its growing subscriber base. Under the terms of the deal, Motorola will deploy its Horizonsystems GSM infrastructure to provide an additional 1 million lines, and the Motorola/Cisco GPRS solution to allow Fastlink to deliver e-mail, messaging, games and entertainment services to its mobile customers.
Motorola was also awarded a GSM expansion deal by Qatar Telecommunications for US$25 million. Motorola was contracted to install Horizon macro GSM 900/1800 MHz base stations to allow the operator to offer services to a wider coverage area.
Turkcell launched multimedia messaging service (MMS) services on 17 July following the installation of Ericsson infrastructure. Ericsson will continue to support the operator in developing content and applications for the service. “Ericsson’s MMS infrastructure enabled our customers to easily use the technology and get access to content,” said Turkcell General Manager Muzaffer Akpinar.
Messaging services were also on the agenda for United Arab Emirates (UAE) content provider Info2Cell, which announced a short message service (SMS) breaking news service in Arabic facilitated by a “switch” option that allows subscribers to choose their preferred language. The decision came following the strong uptake of the English service, which enjoys more than 100,000 users.
Amid this upbeat environment for mobile services in the region, Bahrain’s Batelco announced that its profits and sales were up during the past six months, with revenues from mobile services accounting for 38 percent of overall revenues generated in the period. Mobile services brought in US$39 million and enjoy a penetration rate of 52 percent in the country.
Backing the view that the Middle East market is as strong as ever was Orange. In July, the company agreed to buy a stake in Egyptian operator MobiNil for the sum of US$321 million, securing a 71.25-percent stake that was previously owned by France T
