Dubai, UAE, 14 AUGUST 2012: STC Group, through its synergies with similarly-positioned partners, Oger Telecom and Maxis, has developed transparent, cost efficient, and simple innovative offers in roaming that cater for its clients' needs, while fulfilling their aspirations for a trusted and straightforward experience when travelling.

The telecom's objective is to generate synergies and to create additional values for the group and its operating companies (OPCOs). More than 170.1 million customers are served by STC, Oger Telecom and Maxis, by eight telecoms operating in four continents. Each customer enjoys benefits from leveraging the groups' traffic to improve negotiations with other operators, ensuring intergroup cooperation. This in turn leads to traffic internalization and low inter-operator tariff (IOT) rates, as well as the development of new roaming initiatives and offers.

"STC Group works to develop innovative roaming concepts that can be implemented by each OPCO, based on local needs and requirements. We conduct in-depth research to determine how best to develop offers that will make a difference, resulting in better roaming tariffs for our customers, made possible by our intergroup synergies," said Ghassan Hasbani, CEO, STC Group; International Operations.

"The newest example of intergroup synergies at work is our latest roaming offer, the 'VIVA Pass - KSA add-on', which allows VIVA Bahrain's customers to travel to Saudi Arabia and enjoy the same 'home-like' tariffs while in KSA as they would when calling in Bahrain," said Ulaiyan Al Wetaid, CEO of VIVA Bahrain, an STC OPCO.

'VIVA Pass - KSA add-on' is a new 'home-like' rate plan for VIVA Bahrain customers travelling in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. When roaming on the STC KSA network, customers will benefit from rates discounted by almost 50%, at 50fils per SMS and 50fils per minute for calls within KSA and to Bahrain.

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About STC
Headquartered in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, with a workforce of more than 25,000, STC Group is the largest telecommunications company in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), based on market capitalization, total revenue and number of employees, and is ranked in the top 20 mobile networks in the world. The Group owns and operates the largest and most advanced mobile infrastructure and broadband services in the Middle East and has made major investments with global reach in various continents. Currently, STC's footprint covers the following ten countries: KSA, Kuwait, Bahrain, Indonesia, Malaysia, South Africa, Turkey, India, Jordan and Lebanon, serving 30 million customers in the KSA and a total of 170 million customers globally. In addition, STC serves 2 million pilgrims each year during the Hajj. Strong leadership coupled with strategic investments have increased shareholder value and enabled STC to provide 98% coverage in Saudi Arabia and to successfully introduce new services including 3G, 3.5G, LTE, IPTV, MMS and Broadband high internet speed, along with the latest devices from leading companies.  Standard & Poor's has assigned STC strong A+ long term and A1 ratings, making STC the first telecom company in the region to attain these strong ratings and one of the top five rated telecom companies in the world.

© Press Release 2012