Etihad Etisalat (Mobily) on Saturday announced it had achieved one million mobile broadband subscribers. In a statement, the company said one million connect users represent customers subscribed to any of Mobily's three high-volume mobile broadband bundles: the 1 gigabyte bundle for SR100 ($27) a month, the 5 gigabyte bundle for SR200 ($54) a month, and the unlimited bundle for SR350 ($94) a month. Today, mobile broadband service, based on high speed packet access (HSPA), is available in 80 percent of all populated areas of the Kingdom to any Mobily customer using a device that supports HSPA technology, whether that be a USB modem or handset. Mobily launched these three high-volume bundles commercially on May 19, 2007. By the end of that year, Mobily closed with 73,000 mobile broadband subscribers. Registering a 264 percent growth, Mobily closed 2008 with 266,000 mobile broadband subscribers in its three high-volume bundles, prompting the GSM World Association to describe Mobily as having the busiest mobile date network on the face of the planet. Monthly traffic, upload and downloaded by customers, has grown more than 10 times since December 2007 to this day and stood at over 50 terabytes for December 2009. At the end of March 2009, Mobily finished the upgrade of its mobile data network to support high-speed uplink packet access (HSUPA) technology, increasing uplink speeds and internet speeds in general for customers, thereby becoming one of less than 30 operators around the world to offer its customers a full high speed packet access (HSPA) mobile broadband experience. A month later in April, Mobily reported 452,000 mobile broadband users subscribed to the three bundles representing a 69 percent growth over 2008 yearend results. In June 2009 - a full 24 months after the commercial launch of the high-volume bundles - Mobily reported an active mobile broadband subscriber-base of 600,000 customers, prompting the company's managing director and Chief Executive Officer, Khalid Omar Al Kaf to say “History is about to repeat itself. In the late 1990s and the early 21st century, mobile phone subscriptions overtook fixed line subscriptions.” “Very soon, that same thing will happen with mobile data. Mobile data and wireless subscriptions will overtake fixed line data subscriptions, in numbers of customers and in revenue.” Three months later, when Mobily announced its third quarter financials, the company announced it had 800,000 customers.
