Bahrain is a small and well-developed country. It hosts a strong online presence that is crowded with content. The kingdom’s lucrative internet and datacomm market is set for liberalization as of 2003, a move anticipated to have a positive effect on the prevailing rates in the market, asserts a newly released report from the Arab Advisors Group.
Most of the Bahraini official newspapers, magazines and many other informative sites are presented online. The country’s high literacy rates and high Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita enable the uptake of the Internet and datacomm services. In addition, the fact that Bahrain is the leading center for the offshore banking and financial services in the gulf increases the demand for such advanced services therefore augmenting the subscriber base in the country.
Arab Advisors Group’s new report reveals that the Internet access revenues for the year 2001 stood at $21 million, contributing around four percent of Batelco’s total revenues. “The growth in the Internet market in Bahrain will continue. Even with Batelco’s monopoly, the Internet usage in the country is currently high, with a subscribers’ penetration rate of 6.44 percent as of yearend 2001,” analyst Hala Baqain said.
“The market can sustain more growth especially with the effect of anticipated competition in 2003. We expect it to have extensive competition-induced rate reductions that will further enhance the uptake of the Internet services. The ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) service will have a whopping share of the Internet subscriber base as we expect it to reach 14 percent of the Internet total number of subscribers in 2006, one of the highest in the region,” Baqain added.
The report shows that Batelco’s strategic relationship with Cable & Wireless has allowed Batelco to become a very savvy datacomm provider in the region. The operator is spearheading the global datacomm provider’s network in the region. The datacomm services—including the leased circuits—are Batelco’s third major revenue stream following the fixed and mobile services.
The PDN (Private Data Network) market contributes a big share of the operator’s total revenues; in 2001 it generated more than $34 million—not including leased circuits—eight percent of Batelco’s total revenues.
“E-commerce has a foothold in Bahrain. While it is relatively still new to the region, Bahrain, coupled with a few other countries in the region has a somewhat advanced e-commerce market,” Baqain noted. — (menareport.com)
© 2002 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
