Summary

Qatar is small and very wealthy, with income per capita almost twice as high as even Kuwait or the UAE. This is reflected in high penetration rates for mobile and fixed-line telecoms and for broadband Internet services.

Qatar was the last country in the region to introduce competition to its telecoms market. In July 2009 Vodafone Qatar launched mobile services, initially only available as post paid, ending the monopoly of all sectors of the market previously enjoyed by incumbent Qtel. The consortium led by Vodafone plc of the UK won the second mobile licence in December 2007. A second fixed-line licence was awarded in September 2008, also to the Vodafone consortium.

Vodafone Qatar comes into a market where mobile penetration is already over 150%. Almost all the many new licences tendered in the region over the past few years have been won by local regional operators-other than France Telecom's long-term share of Jordan's JTC, Vodafone is the only European operator in the region. The path to launch has not been easy, with both an IPO and the launch subject to delays.

Despite the high mobile penetration in Qatar, only 5% of subscribers were 3G subscribers rather than GSM in early 2009. This is significantly lower than in the UAE and could be a market for Vodafone to target.
Qtel has been preparing for competition, lowering tariffs in all sectors. Broadband tariffs in Qatar are particularly low for the region and broadband penetration on a household level is relatively high at over 40% and possibly higher. Qtel is also successfully selling its'Mosaic' triple play package of voice, ADSL and IPTV.

Qtel has expanded outside its home market. Through its purchase of Wataniya of Kuwait, Qtel also acquired operations in Tunisia, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, the Maldives and a licence for Palestine. In addition it has separately acquired in Iraq and Oman. Unlike most of its regional rivals, Qtel has expanded further into Asia with interests in Singapore, Cambodia and Laos. In February 2009 it completed the purchase of a 65% share in Indosat of Indonesia. Its operations outside Qatar made up three quarters of its revenues for 2008 but less than half of its profit.
Researcher:-Tine Lewis

Table of Contents

1. Executive summary
2. Key statistics
2.1 Country overview
3. Telecommunications market
3.1 Overview of Qatar's telecom market
4. Regulatory environment
4.1 Background
4.1.1 Telecommunications Law 2006
4.2 Regulatory authority
4.3 Telecom sector liberalisation in Qatar
4.4 Privatisation
5. Fixed network operator in Qatar
5.1 Qtel
6. Telecommunications infrastructure
6.1 National telecom network
6.1.1 Wireless Local Loop (WLL)
6.2 International infrastructure
6.2.1 Submarine cable networks
6.2.2 Satellite networks
7. Broadband and Internet market
7.1 Internet overview
7.1.1 Internet statistics
7.2 Broadband overview
7.2.1 Asymmetrical Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL)
7.3 Wireless Broadband
7.3.1 WiFi
7.3.2 WiMAX
7.3.3 Mobile broadband
8. Convergence
8.1 Overview of media convergence
8.2 Triple play
8.3 Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP)
9. Digital media
9.1 Overview of broadcasting market
9.1.1 Qatar Cable Vision
9.2 Al Jazeera
9.3 IPTV
9.4 E-government
9.5 E-health
10. Mobile communications
10.1 Overview of Qatar's mobile market
10.1.1 Mobile statistics
10.2 Regulatory issues
10.2.1 Second mobile licence
10.3 Mobile technologies
10.3.1 Analogue
10.3.2 Digital
10.3.3 Third generation (3G) mobile
10.3.4 HSPA
10.4 Major mobile operator
10.4.1 Qtel
10.4.2 Vodafone Qatar
10.5 Mobile voice services
10.5.1 Prepaid
10.5.2 Satellite mobile
10.6 Mobile data services
10.6.1 Short Message Service (SMS)
10.6.2 Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS)
10.6.3 General Packet Radio Service (GPRS)
10.6.4 BlackBerry
10.7 Mobile content and applications
10.7.1 Mobile TV
10.7.2 Email
11. Related reports
Table 1-Country statistics Qatar-2008
Table 2-Telephone network statistics-March 2009
Table 3-Internet user statistics-March 2009
Table 4-Broadband statistics-March 2009
Table 5-Mobile statistics-March 2009
Table 6-National telecommunications authority
Table 7-Qtel group mobile and fixed-line revenue and net profit-2005-2008
Table 8-Qtel Qatar mobile and fixed-line revenue and net profit-2005-2008
Table 9-Qtel Qatar fixed-line subscribers and ARPU-2007-2009
Table 10-Fixed lines in service and teledensity-1995-2009
Table 11-Internet users and penetration estimates-1995-2009
Table 12-Internet subscribers-1999-2009
Table 13-ADSL subscribers-2003-2009
Table 14-Qtel triple play subscribers-2008-2009
Table 15-Qtel cable TV subscribers-2008-2009
Table 16-Mobile subscribers and penetration rate-1995-2009
Table 17-Mobile operator, subscribers and annual change-2008
Table 18-Qtel mobile postpaid and prepaid revenue and ARPU-2007-2008
Table 19-Prepaid subscribers-2000-2009