A consortium of 11 companies has pre-qualified for the licensing of public mobile cellular services in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
“Pre-qualified consortia will be able to purchase the request for application from the Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC) headquarters from 11 April 2004. The application process will lead to achievement of CITC’s stated objective of licensing a second public mobile cellular services operator in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia by the last quarter of 2004,” the Commission said in a statement.
The consortia were selected from 12 applicants in the pre-qualification bid. The Commission pre-qualified the following consortia: Etisalat Consortium, FAL Holdings Arabia (Deutsche Telekom), Integrated Visions (Maxis), Kingdom Telefonica (Telefonica Moviles), Mobilkom Saudi Arabia (Mobilkom Austria), MTC and Partners (MTC), MTN Saudi Arabia (MTN), Oger Telecom (Bouygues), Orascom Telecom Saudi Arabia (Orascom), Samawat (Telecom Italia Mobile) and Vodafone and Saudi Partners (Vodafone).
Saudi Arabia has the largest telecom market in the Gulf region, with four million landlines and seven million mobile phone owners. The sector is growing at the rate of 30% per annum.
Source: SPA
