The Emirates Telecommunications Corporation (Etisalat) made it onto Fortune magazine’s Global 500 list of companies for 2002, coming in at 485th place. It is the first United Arab Emirates (UAE) firm to gain entry to the ranking.
Fortune magazine's listing of the top 500 US and global corporations are determined by an index of 12 variables. Other Arab firms included on the list of the 500 richest international companies were the Saudi Arabia Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC) and the Saudi–American Bank.
Etisalat reported a 5.8 percent increase in its revenues for 2002, rising from 7.56 billion Emirati dirhams ($2.05 billion) in 2001 to over eight billion dirhams the following year. At the year’s-end, the company boasted a mobile subscriber-base exceeding 2.4 million and fixed-line subscribers totaling 1.1 million. These figures represent a mobile market penetration rate of 70 percent and 32 percent in the fixed-line market.
The state-owned monopoly service provider Etisalat is headquartered in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. It is the monopoly supplier of all major services - fixed-line, cellular, data communications, and the Internet - a control that is being extended to new areas such as satellite communications and CATV. — (menareport.com)
© 2003 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
