Mobily agrees US$200 million contract for Alcatel-Lucent kit

Mobily has signed a US$200 million agreement with Export Development Canada, to fund the purchase of equipment from Alcatel-Lucent to upgrade/enhance its network.

While the details of the supply deal were not revealed in the filing with the Saudi Arabia stock exchange, earlier this year Mobily and Alcatel-Lucent said they were working together for the first deployment globally of virtualised radio access network software, from the vendor’s NFV portfolio.

According to Alcatel-Lucent, Mobily was the first operator to launch TD-LTE services, and has the largest active HSPA base in the MENA region.

The new loan is described as Shariah-compliant, and also involved Credit Agricole, Societe Generale, and Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi. It has a total tenor of 10.5 years, and will be used over a period of two years.

According to GSMA Intelligence figures, Mobily is the second-largest operator in Saudi Arabia, with just under 20 million connections, behind market leader STC, with 23.2 million.

Zain Saudi Arabia is the third-placed player, with 8.4 million connections.