Nokia Siemens gets a billion dollar deal in Saudi Arabia

^{Zain, former MTC Group has deep African connections} Nokia Siemens gets a billion dollar deal in Saudi Arabia

7 Jan 2008 at 20:19 GMT Timo Poropudas

Zain in Saudi Arabia had granted Nokia Siemens Networks a new greenfield contract that includes multi-year managed services, network operations and maintenance services.

The USD 935 million turnkey contract includes a full turnkey 2G and 3G mobile network, network planning, implementation, project management, systems integration, logistics management, multi-vendor maintenance, field services and network optimization for the base station sites.

Under the terms of the contract, Nokia Siemens Networks will provide to Zain in Saudi Arabia 2G and 3G mobile network technologies, including HSDPA and HSUPA, based on the latest base station design and distributed architecture for both radio access and core networks according to the 3GPP release 4 standard.

The compact Flexi base station design enables the customer to save significantly on capital and operational expenditure and allows for a fast rollout. With the distributed architecture of its mobile softswitch and multimedia gateway, Nokia Siemens Networks is able to offer Zain in Saudi Arabia a cost optimized core network solution with a fast rollout to enable new advanced services for subscribers.

Nokia Siemens is the sole supplier of Zain Saudi’s core network, including the industry leading MSC Server mobile softswitch for cost-efficient voice and data services, as well as the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS), which enables a wide range of rich communications services based on the Internet Protocol.

“We see Nokia Siemens Networks as our preferred partner in supporting our global expansion plans and in creating the largest and most advanced networks in the world,” said Dr. Marwan Al-Ahmadi, CEO for Zain in Saudi Arabia

“This deal is one of the most important in Nokia Siemens Networks’ history, and also very strategic for our growth in Africa as Zain is present in more than 14 countries in the region,” said Dr. Walid Moneimne, Chairman for the Middle East and Africa region, Nokia Siemens Networks.

Zain, formerly known as the MTC Group, is the leading telecommunications mobile provider in 22 countries across the Middle East and Africa and was recently awarded the third mobile telecommunications license for Saudi Arabia.

Zain (formerly MTC) is a leading emerging markets player in the field of mobile telecommunications. The company was established in 1983 in Kuwait. It has grown exponentially becoming the 4th largest telecommunications company in the world in terms of geographic presence with a footprint in 22 countries spread across the Middle East and the African continent.

As of 8 September 2007, Zain became the company’s new corporate master brand name. Currently, the company is present in 7 Middle Eastern (inclusive of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) and 15 sub-Saharan African countries (inclusive of the recent Ghana licence acquisition on October 22, 2007) with over 15,000 employees and 44 million active individual and business customers

The company operates under the Zain brand name in Kuwait, Sudan, Jordan, Iraq and Bahrain. In Lebanon the company operates as mtc-touch. The company plans to commence operations in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the first half of 2008 under the Zain brand.

In Africa, Zain operates under the Celtel brand (www.celtel.com) currently in 14 sub-Saharan African countries namely: Burkina Faso, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Kenya, Malawi, Madagascar, Niger, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. Celtel is the most successful pan-African mobile network, offering telecommunications services to more people in Africa than any other network. The addition of Ghana will expand Celtel’s presence to 15 countries.

The company had a market capitalization of over USD 26 billion on 1 January, 2008.