A new brand of mobile phones made in Saudi Arabia by a Saudi company will hit the market later this month. Based on indigenous technology, the product will be the first "Made in Saudi Arabia" mobile phone, Ghazi Saleh Al-Shalhoub, chairman of Saudi Television Manufacturing Company, told Arab News. "The product is made without collaboration with any foreign manufacturer," he claimed. He said Saudi Television Manufacturing Company's new mobile phone is the first such product in the Kingdom and the Middle East region. It puts Saudi Arabia in a league of nations possessing electronic technology capable of producing such sophisticated products on its own. Al-Shalhoub said the company has invested about $9 million to develop its own technology for the product named Islamic Saudi Mobile Phone which will be offered for sale at the end of January.| It has a built in camera, but it won't take pictures of wimmin... |
The Kingdom imports around six million mobile phones a year, with 70 percent of consumers regularly changing their mobiles, something that has greatly boosted demand. Competition in the mobile phone market is expected to intensify with the arrival of a new competitor to the Saudi Telecom Company which until now has been dominating both the mobile and land phone markets. Ettihad Etisalat which won the second mobile phone service license said it expects to get up to seven million subscribers in the first five years of its operations in the Kingdom.