Etihad Etisalat (Mobily) was established in 2004, as the winning bidder for Saudi Arabia’s second global system for mobile communications (GSM) license. The launch of Mobily provided choice in national mobile telecommunications services to the Saudi population for the first time. It attracted over 1 million subscribers in its first 90 days of operation in 2005, having ended a monopoly in the wireless industry. It continued its rapid rise in 2006, the same year it launched 3.5G services, being named the Middle East and North Africa’s fastest growing mobile operator. 4G services were launched in 2011 and 5G services in 2019.
