Mobile phone subscriptions in Saudi Arabia rose 15 percent to 56.1 million in the third quarter, the Communications and Information Technology Commission said in a quarterly statement posted on its website. The Kingdom's telecommunications regulator said Internet users had reached 13 million and fixed-line phone subscribers hit 4.5 million by the end of September. The total number of mobile subscriptions grew to around 56.1 million by end of 9M 2011, with penetration stood at 198 percent. Prepaid subscriptions constitute the majority (over 87 percent) of all mobile subscriptions, in line with the trend in other similar markets around the world. Fixed telephone lines stood at 4.52 million by end of 9M 2011, of which around 3.34 million or 73 percent were residential lines. This represents a household teledensity of around 67 percent, while the population teledensity is around 15.9 percent or 159 telephone lines for every 1000 inhabitants. Fixed Broadband subscriptions including the (DSL) subscriptions, Fixed Wireless (Wimax) subscriptions and other fixed lines have grown to around 2.13 millions subscriptions at the end of 9M 2011. The Fixed Broadband penetration rate stood at around 30.6 percent of household at the end of 9M 2011. The total subscriptions to mobile broadband reached 11.5 million at the end of 9M 2011, representing a penetration of 40.5 percent of the population. The mobile broadband market continues to gain momentum in the Kingdom and is becoming an increasingly exciting market. One of the key reasons for this growth is the fact that due to competition and the huge expansion of the smart phones which enable customers for varieties of data packages. Becoming easier to access via mobile devices such as smart phones, mobile networks are also improving as 3.5G (HSPA) continues to be deployed and wireless broadband technologies (4G) emerge over the next few years. CITC has adopted the new recommendation put forward by the ITU in early 2011 in calculating the number of subscriptions. The new ITU methodology as well as the new CITC ICT indicators provide for including in the calculation subscriptions to voice SIMs with use of data communications at broadband speeds, as well as subscriptions to dedicated data SIMs. As a result, the broadband subscriptions and penetration totals for the third quarter of 2011 are substantially higher relative to those reported in previous months. The number of Internet users grew from around 1 million in 2001 to an estimated 13 million at the end of 9M 2011. Internet penetration increased to 46 percent of the population by the end of 9M 2011.
