On March 31, Zain Group announced that for the 12 months of 2009, the mobile operator recorded consolidated revenues of KWD 2.318 billion (US$ 8.056 billion), an increase of 15.7 per cent year-on-year. The company’s consolidated EBITDA increased by 24 per cent for the same period to reach KWD 926 million. Consolidated net income reached KWD 195 million, a decrease of 39 per cent.

Year-on-year customer growth in the Middle East and Africa across which Zain operates was 14 per cent, with the cellco reporting the service of 72.5 million managed active customers as of December 31, 2009. Zain Group added over 9 million new active customers over the past twelve months.

India is set to conduct the auction for much-anticipated 3G spectrum on April 9. Applications from prospective bidders were open until March 19 and pre-qualified bidders were announced on March 30. This announcement will be followed by mock auctions held on April 5 and 6.

The nine pre-qualified bidders for the 3G auction are Aircel, Bharti Airtel, Etisalat DB Telecom, Idea Cellular, Reliance Telecom, S Tel, Tata Teleservices, Videocon Telecom, and Vodafone Essar. The 11 pre-qualified for the broadband wireless access (BWA) licences are Aircel, Augere (Mauritius), Bharti Airtel, Indea Cellular, Infotel Broadband Services, Qualcomm, Reliance WiMAX, Spice Internet Service Provider, Tata Communications Internet Services, Tikona Communications Internet Services, and Vodafone Essar.

The auction of BWA spectrum will occur two days after the completion of the 3G bandwidth auction.

Despite the promising news, operators and analysts can be excused for being sceptical that the auction may actually take place, as the process has been delayed three times before since the original date of January 16, 2009. The postponements have been due to internal government disputes over pricing and availability of spectrum.

Vodafone Qatar has been awarded the country’s second fixed-line licence, a decision that is subject to approval at an extraordinary shareholder meeting.

The operator broke the Middle East’s last monopoly telecom market by winning the bid for the country’s second mobile licence at a cost of US$2.12 billion in 2007. It launched its commercial mobile network in July 2009, and recorded an operating loss of QAR 495.6 million (US$137 million) for the nine-months ending December 2009.

Vodafone Qatar ended 2009 with 353,580 mobile subscribers, more than double the number at the end of September. The operator’s subscribers represented 22 per cent of the population, and a market share of 14 per cent.

In September 2008, Qatar’s telecom regulator ictQatar announced the award of Qatar’s second fixed licence to the Vodafone and Qatar Foundation Consortium, for a fixed fee of QAR10 million. Vodafone and Qatar Foundation beat off competition from Jordan Telecom and PCCW in pursuit of the second licence.

There are approximately 285,000 landlines in Qatar at present, representing a penetration rate of 30 per cent.

Philippe Vogeleer is set to leave Orange Jordan, having joined the company in March 2006. He is currently chief strategy officer and secretary general, and has played an instrumental role in building the telco up into an integrated operator under the Orange brand name.

Vogeleer says he is set to remain in the region, taking up a position with another telecom group within the GCC.

Friendi Mobile, the Middle East’s leading mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) reported that it had reached the 150,000 subscriber milestone in Oman in early March. Its subscriber base accounts for around four per cent of all mobile subscribers in the country, and Friendi Group CEO, Mikkel Vinter believes there is further growth to be enjoyed in the market.

“We are pleased to have achieved this number of users in 10 months of operation,” Vinter commented. “Our target from day one has been a market share in Oman in the upper end of the single-digit percentages, and I believe we are well on track to achieving that.”

Oman is the first market in the Gulf in which mobile resellers have been launched commercially. Jordan shall be the next

The crowded mobile reseller market in Oman, which has five licensed players, three of which are operational, is already starting to separate the players that have a likely future from the ones that may not. At a conference held in Dubai in the middle of March, Mohammed Alhashili, CEO of Mazoon Mobile disappointed the audience by not detailing the reseller’s operational performance since launching in Oman in December 2009 as the country’s third mobile reseller.

Alhashili offered no detail with regards to the number of subscribers the operator has added or the company’s ARPU, saying the reseller required more time to establish its business before revealing such details.

Unconfirmed reports from Oman suggest Mazoon Mobile has added around 15,000 subscribers since launch, and given its strategy to offer deferred credits to subscribers who sign up, is believed to be finding participation in the market challenging.