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United Arab Emirates Telecommunications Report Q3 2010
Business Monitor International, July 2010, Pages: 85
This United Arab Emirates Telecommunications Report provides industry professionals and strategists, corporate analysts, telecommunication associations, government departments and regulatory bodies with independent forecasts and competitive intelligence on the United Arab Emirates' telecommunications industry.
In this quarter’s UAE Telecommunications Report, we have provided YE09 figures for all sectors: fixedline, internet, broadband and mobile, following the publication of data by the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA). In addition, a number of regulatory changes have occurred: not least of all the announcement that a third operator will not be licensed for at least a further three years. The publication of mobile subscriber data by Etisalat saw the total number for the end of 2009 reach 11.218mn, rather than the 10.672mn as published by the TRA. This relates to Etisalat not discrediting its inactive subscriber base, while both the regulator and Emirates Integrated Telecommunication Company (du) only count active subscribers; the cut off point being 90 days. This reveals that market growth slowed significantly in 2009, rising just 14.5% compared with 34.5% in the previous year. Much of this relates to the vast majority of the country’s population being expatriates on fixed-term working visas. The global economic downturn, along with Dubai’s financial crisis, led to a mass exodus of expatriate workers. However, with penetration rates also at well over 200%, we would expect the market to show signs of a slowdown as well.
3G is receiving a boost, however. In April 2010, du announced it was planning to raise AED1bn (US$272mn) to finance the expansion of its 3G mobile broadband network. The operator’s plan to raise funds from shareholders has received support from its government backed shareholders. Mobile broadband access is increasingly appearing as a main focus in both du and Etisalat’s strategies going forward, and we are already seeing the introduction of compatible services to go with it such as Facebook and such similar services.
While we are encouraged by the revision to the country’s VoIP regulations, which will allow alternative service providers like Skype to offer their services in partnership with a licensed VoIP operator, we do not foresee any significant changes occurring to the broadband market in the immediate term. The number of internet subscribers continues to grow at a steady pace. During 2009, the number of users rose by 17% y-o-y to reach 3.3mn.
Furthermore, competition in the sector has seen broadband charges drop 31%, while infrastructure sharing agreements between Etisalat and du, the investment into network expansion such as FTTH as well as mobile broadband, will also encourage future growth. By the end of 2009, there were a total of 690,000 broadband subscribers, equivalent to a penetration rate of 15%. The authors forecast that as of 2014, penetration rates will have risen to 24%.
This growing maturity of the UAE’s telecoms industry also led to a revision in its Telecoms Market score, and which saw its position fall to eighth place from seventh in the quarter. With the exception of this change in score, all other indicator scores remained unchanged.
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