UAE's mobile penetration to surpass 200% in the next 5 years
Isabelle Paradis
March 2008
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According to the information released by HOT TELECOM (www.hottelecom.com) in its latest report "UAE telecom country profile 2008", UAE has one of the most developed telecom market and technologically advanced telecom infrastructure in the Gulf with fixed, mobile and Internet penetration rates of 31.2%, 183.7% and 20.9% respectively. The country is ranked first in the Arab World in Networked Readiness Index (NRI), according to the Global Information Technology Report produced by the World Economic Forum.

Until 2007, UAE's telecom sector had been provided under monopoly conditions by the Emirates Telecommunications Corporation (Etisalat), a company of which the UAE government owns 60%. Etisalat however lost its monopoly in 2007 to Emirates Integrated Telecommunication Company (EITC), now re-branded as "du". The company paid a total price of AED124.5 million for the license that granted du the right to install, operate, and manage all range of telecom services across the UAE.

In February 2007, du launched its mobile service across the Emirates in addition to Internet and pay TV services in some of the free zones of Dubai . Call Select, the first of du's nationwide fixed line services, was launched in July 2007. The introduction of the second telecom operator will pave the way to a full liberalisation of the market by 2015.

This report, which includes 25 detailed exhibits and tables on UAE's telecom market, declares that a t the end of 2007, there were an estimated 1.34 million fixed subscribers, 7.9 million mobile customers and an estimated 900,000 Internet connections in the Emirates. The number of broadband Internet subscribers has been growing exponentially with an average growth rate of 98.5% over the past 4 years, bringing the total number of broadband subscribers to an estimated 462,000. "The Emirates' dynamism and forward thinking has enabled the UAE to achieve one of the world's highest mobile penetration and one of the region's highest fixed and Internet connectivity " HOT TELECOM's president Isabelle Paradis said.

Find out more about the UAE telecom market in HOT TELECOM's new 28-page "UAE telecom country profile 2008" report, which can be purchased online at: http://www.hottelecom.com/uae-copr.html.