Qtel’s aggressive marketing campaigns in Qatar over the past three months ahead of the looming end of its monopoly, have added a further 300,000 mobile customers, bringing the telco’s mobile subscriber base to 1.8 million, the operator announced today.
The delay of Vodafone Qatar’s full commercial launch until the latter part of this year, will allow incumbent Qtel to further grow its subscriber base ahead of direct competition
The company had previously reported 1.5 million subscribers in November 2008 and attributes the rapid accumulation of new mobile lines to the re-launch of its Hala Pay-As-You-Talk service and its Shahry postpaid service, with lower prices and additional options. This included Shahry’s ‘One Free Number’ campaign, which enables customers to select one number they can call for free indefinitely.
“We have always said that competition would be good for the people of Qatar and good for Qtel, since it will enable us to demonstrate just how attractive our services are, and will encourage us to fully understand our customers’ needs,” commented Adel Al Mutawa, executive director of group communications.
Second operator Vodafone Qatar switched on its network overnight allowing its first 100 customers to use the service from March 10, and the remaining 900 customers in its network trial to use the service shortly after.
As Comm. reported last month, Vodafone’s launch has been fraught with challenges, including disagreement with Qtel over interconnection fees, and a network rollout that was significantly behind schedule, meaning a true commercial launch is only likely in the second half of this year.
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