Riyadh: The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) company Etihad Etisalat Co., known as Mobily and Telecom Egypt has signed a strategic Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to build the first direct bilateral submarine cable system linking Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
According to a joint statement by the two companies, the memorandum was signed on, Monday, in Riyadh, in the presence of the CEO of Mobily, Salman Al-Badran, and the managing director and CEO of Telecom Egypt Eng. Adel Hamed.
The MoU enabled the discussion of several new options to connect international capacities, westward to Europe via the Telecom Egypt network, and eastward to the Arabian Gulf via the Mobily network, through the extension of the two companies’ networks to connect them to a number of neighbouring countries.
The plan to launch the new submarine cable system comes in line with the increasing growth in communications traffic, and in response to the great demand between Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
The CEO of Mobily, Salman Al Badran, said, “By adopting cutting-edge technologies, we continue to expand our infrastructure and scale our capabilities across the KSA and the wider region.”
Meanwhile, the Managing Director and CEO of Telecom Egypt, Adel Hamed, commented, “We are pleased to build this strategic collaboration with Mobily, which helps increase the scale and reach of our networks, and adds more connections with the KSA.”
Mobily is the second mobile service provider in Saudi Arabia, and its profits rose to 1072 million riyals (about 286 million dollars) by the end of 2021, compared to profits of 783.3 million riyals ($208 million) achieved during the year 2020.
While the profits of Telecom Egypt, one of the main players in the Egyptian mobile communications market, in the year 2021, amounted to 8.4 billion pounds (450 million dollars), an increase of 74 percent compared to the previous year.
