Tech giant Ericsson has said its fourth quarter sales rose 12 percent in the Middle East, with Saudi Arabia driving performance.
Ericsson’s Middle East sales increased 42 percent quarter-on-quarter and by two percent for the full year, it said in a statement.
“Saudi Arabia developed especially favourably in the quarter although the region was still negatively impacted by political unrest in many countries with operators continuing to be cautious with infrastructure investments,” it added.
Ericsson said the deployment of new high speed networks in parts of the region “resulted in positive networks sales both year-over-year, sequentially and for the full year”.
It added that services also developed favourably as regional operators look for opportunities to increase efficiencies.
Anders Lindblad, head of Ericsson Region Middle East, said: “We’ve had some major achievements in 2011, and despite the political unrest that still affects the region’s economies and business decisions, we have announced a number of successes with our customers throughout the year which is a testament to the region’s potential as a telecommunications hub.”
In November, Ericsson said mobile penetration rates in the Middle East were among the world’s highest at 96 percent compared to a global average of 82 percent.
Ericsson’s November 2011 Traffic and Market Data report showed that the number of new connections in the Middle East grew by three percent in the third quarter of 2011, with the number of connections increasing to 244 million.
Significantly, the region saw more growth in mobile penetration during this time than North America and Western Europe combined with 7.7 million new mobile subscriptions added between July and September.
Ericsson is a world-leading provider of telecommunications equipment and services to mobile and fixed network operators.
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