According to a recent report by the Arab Advisors Group, a company specializing in providing analysis and consulting services in the field of communications, media technologies and developing financial markets in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, the UAE is the country where mobile phone user growth is growing at the fastest the pace.
The report shows that the penetration rate, an indicator that measures the total number of mobile phone users in the UAE is –– 198.6%, which means that every resident of the country has at least two mobile phones.
The Arab Advisors Group report compared 30 fixed-line service providers and 50 mobile service providers in 19 Arab countries. In total, the number of mobile subscribers has reached 194.5 million people in the Middle East region. The list of mobile companies is led by Saudi telecommunications operator Al Jawwal with 17.8 million subscribers at the end of the first half of 2008, followed by two companies operating in the Egyptian market - Mobinil and Vodafone.
The United Arab Emirates leads not only as the country with the largest number of mobile phones per capita, but also as the country with the largest number of landlines, which account for 29.4 of the total number of lines in the Middle East region. The list of countries with the highest average revenue per subscriber is headed by Qatar, where the local mobile company Qtel showed the highest rate of fixed-line services, and Kuwaiti Zain - cellular services.
"Competition in the provision of mobile services is the main factor for the growth of the telecommunications industry. This is evidenced by the record growth rate of several large mobile operators in the first half of this year. For example, Libyan mobile company Al Madar Aljadid showed the highest percentage growth among other operators which was 57.1%, followed by the Emirate Du with 53.3%, "said Issa Gussus, senior market research specialist at the Arab Advisors Group.
