The UAE, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait top the ranks, while Morocco and Syria's rankings are far from flattering!

A newly released comprehensive trend report from the Arab Advisors Group fully analyzes the dynamics of the mainline market and the cellular market in eleven Arab countries (Bahrain, Egypt, Kuwait, Jordan, Lebanon, Oman, Morocco, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and UAE).

October 14, 2002 -

The mainlines (fixed phones) markets in the Arab World continue to be monopolistic markets; currently the only providers of mainlines are the incumbent operators. The majority of those incumbent operators are state-owned. Most Arab fixed markets are expected to remain uncompetitive until the end of 2004, as the pressure will increase on the governments to liberalize the markets. Furthermore, all of the incumbent operators have a monopoly over international gateways expect for Morocco, which has granted MediTel the right to offer its subscribers ILD service on its own.

A new report "A comparative analysis of the cellular and mainlines markets in the Arab World", was released to the Arab Advisors Group's (www.arabadvisors.com) Strategic Research Service subscribers on October 14, 2002. The report shows that the Arab cellular market is more liberalized than the mainlines market. Currently out of the eleven markets examined, six markets have duopoly operators (Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco and Syria).

"Between the years 1998 and 2001, the total number of cellular subscribers in the eleven examined countries was lower than that of mainlines. However, the total number of cellular subscribers is expected to exceed that of mainlines by 2002. By the end of 2002 the number of cellular subscribers will have exceeded that of mainlines in 9 of the 11 examined countries (Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE)." Arab Advisors Group's analyst, Shahin Shahin wrote in the report.

The 18-page report, which includes detailed exhibits on the markets is based on Arab Advisors Group's comprehensive primary research on the Arab World's major communications markets. The report serves as a break through and truly accurate examination of each of the markets in a regional context. Towards that end, the Arab Advisors Group calculated the Market Share Index for each of the countries. The index is calculated by dividing the share of total subscribers in each country by the share of total population of each country from the total population of the eleven countries. The higher the score the better the development status of the market, penetration wise. A score of less than 1 indicates some underdevelopment in the market.

On the Cellular Market share Index, the UAE was first by a wide margin with a score of 5.38. Bahrain was second with a score of 3.98, followed by Kuwait (3.87), Qatar (2.72), Lebanon (1.88), Morocco (1.52), Jordan (1.46), Oman (1.2), Saudi Arabia (1.12), Egypt (0.51) and Syria (0.1).

As for the Mainline Market share Index, the UAE also topped the ranks with a score of 2.96. Second was Qatar (2.54), Bahrain (2.3), Lebanon (2.04), Kuwait (1.95), Saudi Arabia (1.42), Jordan (1.19), Syria (0.98), Egypt (0.93), Oman (0.85), and Morocco (0.35).

"This comprehensive trend report from the Arab Advisors Group is based on eleven comprehensive country communications projections reports released on the eleven countries over the past period in addition to many more research notes" Jawad Abbassi, Arab Advisors President noted. "Our team has been focusing on the Arab World's communications markets for the past two years which gives us the unique opportunity of producing such regional comparisons for the benefit of all concerned", Mr. Abbassi added.

The Arab Advisors Group's team of analysts in the region has already produced close to 120 reports on the Arab World's communications markets. The reports can be purchased individually or received through an annual subscription to Arab Advisors Group's (www.arabadvisors.com) Strategic Research Service. To date, Arab Advisors Group has served more than 60 global and regional companies by providing reliable research analysis and forecasts of Arab communications markets to these clients.