Zain zooms with infusion of $5.5bn

Zain, the Kuwaiti telecoms operator, is planning to invest $5.5 billion over the next five years with plans to develop super-fast broadband connections.

Zain's US$5.5 billion investment is part of its "Ghaduna Zain" strategy, roughly translated as "Tomorrow Zain". Salah Malkawi for The National

Zain, the Kuwaiti telecoms operator, is planning to invest US$5.5 billion (Dh20.2bn) over the next five years and develop mobile internet connections that run 10 times faster than current technology.
"It is a very ambitious plan to make the company a very lean and agile company. The extreme focus will be on our customers as our first, second and third priority," said Hisham Akbar, the deputy chief executive and chief operating officer of Zain Group.
"We are moving from a technology focused company that sells technology into a customer-driven company that looks at what the customer wants and sources out technologies for that focus.
"One of these technologies is super-speed mobile broadband technology known as long-term evolution (LTE), which claims to be about 10 times faster than the current third generation (3G) networks.
"We already have LTE in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, which is about to go live," said Hisham Mustafa Allam, the chief technical officer. "Bahrain is likely to be the next one. We have secured the spectrum from the regulator. Hopefully by the beginning of next year, Bahrain will be LTE-ready."
The investment, which will be funded by the company's own balance sheet, is part of its "Ghaduna Zain" strategy, roughly translated as "Tomorrow Zain".
Adopters of LTE are still relatively small, although Mr Allam is expecting greater growth.
"We are trying to motivate the heavy data users to move. Subscriber numbers were slow in Saudi Arabia at the start, but numbers have been growing fast. Currently we have a couple of thousand, but by the end of the year we should have tens of thousands," said Mr Allam.
Zain currently has no plans to sell off any of its assets, according to Mr Akbar.
"As far as the executive management team is concerned, there is no news of selling and there is nothing on the horizon," he said.
Last year Batelco and Kingdom Holding scrapped a $950 million takeover plan for Zain's Saudi Arabia unit.
"Realistically we don't see that our expected value for Zain Saudi will come in the next couple of years. We are investing in the unit, we are rebuilding it and we are fully committed to Zain Saudi and to position it in the way it should be, but this will take time," said Mr Akbar.
He said the operator was focusing on organic growth and aiming to cut back on outsourcing as it looked to make the best use of its resources.
"We will not be hiring from the outside, growth will come from within. We will rely on using our Zain staff and move them around to the right departments," said Mr Akbar.
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