Bahrain - Telecoms, Mobile and Broadband - Statistics and Analyses

Bahrain - Telecoms, Mobile and Broadband - Statistics and Analyses

Bahrain’s MNOs further extend 5G capabilities Bahrain’a MNOs have developed excellent 5G infrastructure in recent years. Batelco teamed up with Ericsson, and by early 2021 the company’s 5G network provided near complete population coverage. STC selected Huawei as vendor, and its 5G service provides data at up to 1.2Gb/s. Zain Bahrain was relatively late in launching a commercial 5G service. Also partnered with Ericsson, the company in mid-2021 deployed carrier aggregation technology to increase network capacity.The country saw a fall in the number of mobile subscriptions between 2017 and 2019, due to the introduction biometric SIM registration laws. More recently, growth has been supressed by the economic and restrictive effects of the pandemic, which resulted in periods of lockdown and limits on travel for foreign workers. These factors resulted in a 7.9% fall in the number of subscribers in 2020, year-on-year, though there was a slight growth in the first months of 2021. The MNOs are looking to mobile broadband, supported by the increased take-up of 5G services, to prop up revenue growth. This has met with some success: Zain Bahrain reported a 4% increase in revenue in the first half of 2021, year-on-year.