Etisalat's 3G hits 5,000 mark

July 22, 2004

Etisalat's 3G mobile services has suffered from handset shortage but its eight month old service has received good response from subscribers in the UAE with over 5,000 subscribers so far.

"Connectivity has crossed the 5,000 mark for 3G services and the number is growing steadily but due to shortage of handsets we are not seeing faster growth," said Mohammad Ahmad Al Fahim, executive vice-president for marketing at Etisalat, Gulf News reported.

In the meantime the shortage could hinder rapid growth of its service. Etisalat's users has so far been using the Motorola A835 handset while new handset models won't be available until later in the year shortage.

"We expect by third or fourth quarter this year new models will come into the market offering customer's more choices," he said

Al Fahim said Etisalat's MMS is growing fast and once the roaming service for MMS is available better growth is expected.

Mobile phone users in UAE outstrip fixed line subscribers. There are over 3.3 million GSM subscribers in UAE compared to 1.1 million fixed line subscribers.