Etisalat honoured with three awards from the "Telecom World Middle East Awards 2008"

These awards reflected the company's success in all areas of its retail and wholesale operations, marketing and leadership.

Etisalat was named "Best Brand" for its success in introducing the Etisalat brand into Egypt, Afghanistan and Nigeria.

This is the first time that the Etisalat brand has been used outside of the UAE and marked a defining moment in the company's history.

Etisalat chairman, H.E. Mohammad Hassan Omran, who has supervised Etisalat's international expansion to its current position, where it is numbered amongst the largest operators in the world, was also personally honoured for a lifetime of achievements in the Middle East telecommunications industry.

Mohammad Hassan Omran said:

"Etisalat is honored to receive this recognition from the telecoms industry through the Telecoms World Middle East Awards. Etisalat today is one of the largest operators in the world, and we are on course to achieve our vision of becoming one of the top ten service providers by 2010. I would like to thank each of our employees across the Middle East, Africa and Asia as this would not have been possible without their hard work and commitment."

Etisalat UAE was named "Operator of the Year" for demonstrating a culture of excellence and commitment to customer service and technological innovation.

The UAE telco has consolidated its leadership in the UAE telecoms market this year through its strategy to provide value to its customers through innovation, convenience and high quality network coverage.

Mohammed Khalfan Al Qamzi, CEO of Etisalat said:

"The Best Operator Award highlights our achievements in delivering the highest levels of quality and most innovative telecom services to our customers in the UAE. The services, infrastructure and advanced technologies that we have deployed has helped the UAE to become the country of the future and we are delighted that Etisalat's UAE operations continue to perform strongly. This can clearly be seen with our mobile subscribers in the UAE exceeding the 7 million mark this year."

His Excellency, Nasser Bin Obood, Chief Corporate Affairs Officer of Etisalat received the three awards on behalf of Etisalat during the Telecom World Awards Ceremony.

The Telecom World Middle East Awards complement a fourth title Etisalat earned at a separate ceremony in Amsterdam also this week.

Here, Etisalat was named Best Wholesale Service Provider in the Middle East at the annual Global Wholesale Telecommunications Awards, hosted by Capacity Magazine.

The award was presented yesterday on the first evening of the Capacity Europe 2008 conference in Amsterdam.

Etisalat has subsidiary telecommunications companies in 17 countries in the Middle East, Asia and Africa and services over 74mn customers across these markets.

The total population of its regional footprint is currently 1.6bn people.