Zain Group, the leading mobile telecom innovator in eight markets across the Middle East and Africa, announced a regional first as its operations in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia successfully launch the first 5G roaming service in the MENA region, with download speeds reaching as high as 500 Mbps for both outbound and inbound roaming.

Bader Al-Kharafi, Zain Vice-Chairman and Group CEO, and Vice-Chairman of Zain Saudi Arabia commented: “This momentous stride taken on our 5G journey reinforces our global position at the forefront of the implementation of this exciting technology. It is through the vision and support of the country’s leadership in markets such as Kuwait and Saudi Arabia that we can make such rapid progress in this nascent area, and in turn expedite our 5G roll out in support of both the New Kuwait 2035 Vision and Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030.”

The 5G services offer three basic high speed connectivity features. It offers its customers speed that is 10 times faster than those on 4G networks. Additionally, the 5G services provide an extremely Low latency that will create a unique user experience. The third feature is capacity, where the higher capacity of the 5G network will enable more devices to connect to one telecom tower simultaneously without interfering with the user experience.

Zain KSA is committed to enhancing the Kingdom’s leading position as one of the most invested countries in developing digital services in line with Saudi Vision 2030’s goals, where its first 5G network coverage is the largest in the Middle East, Europe and Africa.

Zain KSA’s 5G roaming service is now available within the existing data roaming packages without any additional fees.

Zain joins a very select few operators globally to have tested and introduced international 5G roaming and remains the only one to establish 5G roaming between two countries in the MENA region.