Saudi Arabia's CST reports network performance in 2025 Hajj
Saudi Arabia's Communications, Space & Technology Commission (CST) reported over 181.2 million local and international voice calls in Makkah, Madinah, and the holy sites during the 2025 Hajj season.
The strong performance reflects advanced telecom infrastructure and coordinated efforts among service providers.
The CST reported a 32% year-on-year (YoY) increase in mobile internet speeds during the 2025 Hajj, reaching 297 Mbps between May 28 and June 6. Daily data usage per person hit 1,259 MB, more than 2.9 times the global average, CST said in a statement sent by Argaam.
The commission attributed the results to strong government support and effective coordination between the public and private sectors involved in the Hajj season. The Kingdom's advanced digital infrastructure played a key role in enhancing pilgrims' experience, health, safety, and security.
Various tech innovations, including artificial intelligence (AI) tools used for crowd management, contributed to service quality. These technologies enabled authorities to deliver reliable and high-quality services during the pilgrimage.
The commission said it mobilized all resources to ensure high-quality telecom and IT services, working closely with telecom providers.
This year's AI-powered crowd control system, developed in partnership with Aramco Digital, was successfully deployed with support from the High Commission for Industrial Security, Saudi Water Authority, and Saudi Railways Co.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Arab News
2 hours ago
- Arab News
Saudi commercial bank profits jump 16% in April, topping $2bn before zakat, tax
RIYADH: Saudi Arabia's banking sector extended its winning streak in April, posting SR7.77 billion ($2.07 billion) in pre-zakat and tax profits, a 16 percent increase compared to the same month last year. According to the Saudi Central Bank, also known as SAMA, this brought year-to-date earnings to SR32.97 billion, an annual rise of 20 percent, keeping the Kingdom firmly on course for another record-breaking period. The sustained momentum is attributed to a robust mix of state spending on giga-projects, resilient consumer demand, and still-elevated interest rates. Financing volumes continue to climb, driven primarily by corporate borrowers across a growing range of industries, including manufacturing, utilities, insurance, and private education. Contractors are also racing to secure long-term credit for giga-projects such as NEOM, Diriyah, and the Jafurah gas field. A wider Gulf picture Strong as those local figures are, the broader region is also gaining momentum. A Kamco Invest report released in May showed that Gulf banks collectively earned a record $15.6 billion in the first quarter of 2025, an 8.6 percent increase from a year earlier. Financial institutions in the UAE posted the largest absolute increase, adding $639.6 million, while Saudi lenders recorded the fastest annual growth at 17.2 percent. Kamco added that fee income is rising, costs are under control, and loan-loss provisions fell sharply during the period, cushioning a small dip in net interest income. Investor appetite is visible in market valuations. Forbes Middle East's '30 Most Valuable Banks 2025' March list includes 10 Saudi lenders with a combined market cap of about $269 billion— roughly one-third of the entire ranking. Al Rajhi Bank led the pack at $105.6 billion, with Saudi National Bank following at $54.7 billion. Global Finance named Saudi Awwal Bank the Kingdom's best lender in its May 'World's Best Banks in the Middle East 2025' release, highlighting its HSBC-backed mobile app upgrades, Visa Direct payments, and one-stop small and medium-sized enterprises lending platform. Cleaning the books and raising cash Banks are also getting balance sheets ready for the next investment wave. Bloomberg reported in March that lenders are exploring sales of older non-performing loans to specialist investors to free up capital for upcoming mega project drawdowns. They're also tapping capital markets. By June, they had issued over $5.6 billion in Additional Tier-1 bonds, already a full-year record and the world's second-largest AT1 issuance in 2025, according to Bloomberg. The spree includes Al Rajhi Bank's $1.25 billion deal in April, Banque Saudi Fransi's $650 million perpetual at 6.375 percent in May, Saudi Awwal Bank's $650 million inaugural issue, and Alinma Bank's $500 million of sustainable sukuk, all heavily oversubscribed. By tapping eager investors now, while margins remain healthy and global demand for Gulf paper is strong, lenders are bulking up capital buffers and keeping loan-to-deposit ratios in check. That leaves them better prepared to fund the fast-rising credit needs of projects like NEOM and Diriyah without tripping liquidity alarms later in the year. Fintech role Fintech is reshaping Saudi banking from the ground up. The Saudi Central Bank's Open Banking Framework — most recently updated in September to cover payment-initiation services — sets common technical rules that let lenders and start-ups plug their systems together safely and at speed. Speaking at the inaugural 24 Fintech conference in September, Finance Minister Mohammed Al-Jadaan revealed that the Kingdom had licensed 224 fintech firms by the second quarter of 2024, up from fewer than 100 just three years earlier. One of the newest players is Riyadh-based Stitch, which closed a $10 million seed round on May 28. The company offers a single set of application-programming interfaces that lets banks, fintechs and even non-financial brands bolt on real-time payments and open-banking functions far faster than older systems. Early adopters already include Lulu Exchange and point-of-sale platform Foodics. The founders say the fresh cash will go toward doubling the engineering team and expanding the product suite. Looking ahead Riyad Capital's first-quarter preview, released in April, expects another double-digit profit rise this year, about SR19 billion for the listed banks it tracks, as loan growth stays strong and rate cuts arrive slowly. S&P Global, in its Saudi Arabia Banking Sector Outlook 2025 report, says a 10 percent increase in lending should outweigh a 20- to 30-basis-point dip in margins, keeping sector returns on assets near 2.1 percent to 2.2 percent. Funding is the main watchpoint. Moody's shifted its system outlook to stable on Feb. 25, saying strong credit growth is tightening liquidity, but capital buffers remain solid. For now, asset-quality risks remain low. S&P expects non-performing loans to edge up to just 1.7 percent by the end of 2025, while loan-loss provisions are projected to stay around 50 to 60 basis points. Banks' total capital ratios, hovering near 19 percent, provide a solid buffer to absorb potential shocks from falling oil prices or rising private-sector leverage. Saudi lenders are still the region's earnings workhorse. Profits are rising, market values are high, and fresh money — from bond buyers to venture capitalists — is flowing in. If they can keep gathering deposits quickly enough to fund a fast-growing loan book, the Kingdom's banks look set to stay ahead of their Gulf neighbors in both profit and ambition well into next year.
Al Arabiya
2 hours ago
- Al Arabiya
Saudi Arabia's first-quarter GDP grows by 3.4 percent, beating flash estimates
Saudi Arabia's economy grew by more than expected in the first quarter of 2025, according to government data estimates, with lower oil prices impacting the economy less than previously forecast. First-quarter GDP grew by 3.4 percent compared to the same quarter of the previous year, beating flash estimates of 2.7 percent released in May by the Saudi General Authority for Statistics. Oil GDP shrank by 0.5 percent, while initial flash estimates had shown it contracting by 1.4 percent. Non-oil growth reached 4.9 percent compared to estimates last month pointing to a 4.2 percent increase. With Reuters
Arab News
3 hours ago
- Arab News
How Gulf ties became key focus of India's foreign policy over past decade
Ties with Gulf countries have become a key focus of India's foreign policy over the past 10 years, the latest report by the Council for Strategic and Defence Research shows, highlighting New Delhi's special focus on Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Headquartered in the Indian capital, the CSDR is a think tank specializing in research on geopolitics, foreign policy, and military strategy. Its report published last month, 'From Trees to Forests: The Evolution of India-Middle East Ties post 2014,' highlights India's investment in bilateral relations with Gulf Cooperation Council countries, which are independent of larger global frameworks. The effort to strengthen the connection started before Prime Minister Narendra Modi took office in 2014, but it has gained momentum with his frequent visits to the six-member bloc comprising Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman. 'In the last 10 years, India has substantiated this effort by filling crucial gaps in political, economic, and military contact with key states, with a special focus on Saudi Arabia and the UAE,' Bashir Ali Abbas, senior research associate at CSDR and the report's author, told Arab News. 'In the last 10 years, the Middle East has also emerged as a strategic space for India, with new defense relationships, and economic visions which also fit with the Gulf's own focus on economic diversification.' While India's relations with the Gulf region span centuries, it currently has the largest concentration of the Indian diaspora — about 9.7 million people. 'And India's top oil suppliers at any point in time inevitably are at least three Gulf states. This alone necessitates that India pay close attention to the region,' Abbas said. 'In India, policy makers and official decision-making institutions have updated their understanding of the region, but more importantly its changing nature. This evolved understanding has enabled the rise of new strategic partnerships, and PM Narendra Modi is the only Indian PM to have officially visited all six states of the Gulf Cooperation Council.' By 2018, the GCC became India's largest regional trading bloc, with an annual trade value of $104 billion in FY2017-2018. The volume that year surpassed India-ASEAN trade of $81 billion, and India-EU trade — $102 billion. Currently, it is even higher, with the Indian government estimating it at $162 billion in FY2023-24. In 2019, India became only the fourth state to establish a Strategic Partnership Council with Saudi Arabia, following Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's visit to New Delhi. During the Kingdom's presidency of the Group of 20 largest economies in 2020, the two countries started to forge partnerships and bilateral programs that saw further development as India took the G20 presidency in 2023. Over the past four years, the countries have since also engaged in a series of bilateral navy, air force and army exercises. 'Today, India sees Saudi Arabia as a strategic partner, with political and economic ties robust enough to also substantial cooperation in defense and security,' Abbas said. 'Given both India's own Viksit Bharat 2047 development vision and (the crown prince's) Vision 2030, India and Saudi Arabia are now driven by shared economic and strategic goals.' With the UAE, India signed a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement in 2022, following which their bilateral trade grew to $85 billion in just over a year. The number of multi-sectoral memoranda of understanding between Indian and Emirati public and private entities has since reached over 80, according to the CSDR report. 'India also sought to reframe other bilateral relationships where fresh opportunities had arisen,' it said, adding that New Delhi was 'closing the Gulf circle,' with strategic partnerships signed with Kuwait during Modi's visit in 2024, and with Qatar during Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani's state trip to New Delhi in early 2025. The relations 'will certainly see a positive trajectory in the near and distant future — especially if it is backed up by greater avenues of intellectual contact,' Abbas said. 'Greater intellectual contact and an evolved popular understanding will enhance the strategic relationships between India and its Arab partners, through the injection of more ideas, perspectives, and actors who can work as champions for closer ties.'
