Cell phone use in Saudi Arabia up 200%

The use of mobile phones in the Kingdom has increased by 200 percent, according to an international telecom expert. "We expect that the Saudi telecom market will continue to grow," said Comptel Corporation's President and CEO Juhani Hintikka. In a statement on the occasion of the opening of the company's branch office in Riyadh, Hintikka said there is tremendous increase in the number of subscribers for information services in the Kingdom. "This has increased the responsibility of service providers to meet the requirements of their clients efficiently," he said. Hintikka said Saudi Arabia is heading to become a major telecommunication hub in the region as clients in the country are looking for new products daily. According to a report by Global Investment House, the mobile subscriber base in Saudi Arabia hit 53.7 million in the fourth quarter of 2011, approximately doubling the aggregate subscriber base of 26.0 million of rest of the GCC countries. Saudi mobile subscriber base, however, decreased by 4.2 percent QoQ to 53.7 million in Q4 2011. The decline in subscriber base was due to adjustment for inactive subscribers, according to the report. Zain KSA saw the largest adjustment to its numbers with its subscriber base coming down to 7.57 million in Q4 2011 compared to 9.95 million subscribers in Q3 2011, the report said. Based in Washington, DC, Comptel is the leading industry association representing competitive communications service providers and their supplier partners. From Arabnews