Etisalat was the strategic partner of “Beyond Connectivity 2010', the two-day conference themed 'Shifting Gears - Innovative Strategies for a New Era' organized by SAMENA Telecommunications Council. The event was held in Beirut - Lebanon, on 28 and 29 April 2010 and brought together telecommunications experts and industry leaders in the regionto discuss latest trends, strategies aimed at promoting the growth of the telecommunications sector in the region and stimulate innovation. Discussions also covered broadband technology models and mobile content among other topics
Mr. Nasser Bin Obood, Acting CEO Etisalat was among the key note speakers in the CEO Live session, where he highlighted Etisalat’s high growth rates and a significant increase in number of subscribers by 34% during 2008-2009 leading to a growth in revenues by 24% and 20% in net profit per annum since 2005.
Nasser Bin Obood pointed to Etisalat’s success in diversifying sources of revenue by improving and upgrading our network with advanced technologies to enable the introduction of new products and services such as higher speed broadband packages, improved value added services and introducing the most advanced mobiles like the iPhone, and Blackberry. Our mobile internet users are more than a million customers. Adding that Etisalat has been able to achieve increase in internet revenues by AED 599m (9% of total revenue ) while the data revenues increased by Dh 486m (12% of total revenues) in 2009.
Nasser bin Obood also explained success in broadband services based on LTE technology, expected to be launched in 2011. He pointed out that more than 700,000 are within the reach of eLife network. Etisalat also achieved an increase in the number internet subscribers by 178,000 (15%) in 2009.
The second speaker from Etisalat was Mr. Khalifa Al Shamsi, Senior Vice President of Marketing, who discussed the future prospect of content industry for mobile phones" and its relevance to the telecommunication sector in general, and to operators, in particular. He also highlighted the overlap made in this field as operators are playing a greater role in content production and delivery to the user.
Khalifa Al Shamsi explained how global developments have offered new tools to add services not seen before especially with the emergence of new monitors that can be connected to the mobile phone, computer and television. This according to Al Shamsi will have a big impact on entertainment and uses of the Internet. He noted that Etisalat’s fiber optic network " is helping the introduction of new services is of higher quality, like eLife Double Play that combines Landline Telephone and Broadband Internet services in one easy bundled offer at a reasonable cost.
