Dubai, 28 January 2009: Heralding the next stage of development and growth, du, the UAE’s integrated telecom service provider, and the UK’s Vodafone today jointly announced signing of a Partner Market Agreement. The exclusive strategic partnership will help both companies to better serve the needs of their respective customers in the UAE.

 

Under the terms of this agreement, du will have exclusive access to Vodafone’s range of products, devices and services in the UAE and will be able to draw on Vodafone’s experience in supply chain management, technology development, acquisition of enterprise customers from multi-national companies as well as improved inter-working between networks.

 

To be available in phases over a period of time, the partnership with Vodafone will provide du customers with improved voice and data roaming access across 67 countries. In turn, Vodafone will be able to use du’s state-of-the-art 3G network to offer its customers full set of services available on home network capabilities and extended coverage within the UAE. The partnership will also enable various multinational companies based outside the UAE and with local operations meet their needs for unified communication, offer centralized customer care and enjoy Vodafone’s benefits using du lines.

 

Commenting on the agreement, Hatem Dowidar, CEO, Vodafone Partner Markets, commented: “Through this agreement with du, Vodafone will be able to increase its brand recognition and extend its product range to a key market with a growing population. Mobile usage in the UAE is growing steadily and more of our customers require enhanced roaming services to and from the region.”

 

Underling the benefits of the partnership, Osman Sultan, CEO, du, said: “The partnership with Vodafone will enable du and our customers to join the world’s largest international mobile network, whilst maintaining the advantages of being a local operator, thus supporting our prime mission of best serving the UAE population. This alliance will bring substantial benefits to our customers and shareholders, becoming a catalyst for expanding our service portfolio and improving our operational efficiency. "

 

At a later stage, the du-Vodafone partnership will offer benefits such as mobile broadband connectivity products for PC’s through innovative means, secure remote mobile access for small business users, converged email solutions, faster and exclusive access to new models of handsets and much more.