Mobily, the second mobile phone operator in Saudi Arabia, announced that it has reached 600,000 mobile broadband subscribers, an increase of 126 percent compared to the second quarter of 2008. After two years of operations in the Kingdom, Mobily has posted a growth rate of 445 percent with 266,000 new subscribers by the end of the second quarter of 2009, said a press release issued by Etihad Etisalat (Mobily). Basically, mobile broadband subscribers are any Mobily customers who connect to the Internet using any of the three high-volume monthly bundles – 1 GB, 5 GB or unlimited package. As of May this year alone, the daily mobile data use reached 37 terabyte, and over one petabyte of traffic exchanged during the month, doubling consumption as compared to the end of 2008. Mobily regionally kick-started demand for mobile broadband by launching in May 2007, the region's first and so far only unlimited mobile broadband bundle at an affordable monthly charge of SR350, along with two other high-usage bundles, the 5GB and 1GB bundle for SR200 and SR100, respectively. Responding to pent-up demand, Mobily signed up 50,000 users during the first few months, it said. Mobily has moved aggressively into mobile and wireless data provision over the past two years. Early this month, Mobily launched a new handset that offered dual advantage to subscribers serving both as an entertainment phone and high speed packet access (HSPA) modem.
