The Chairman of the Board of Directors of stc, HRH Prince Mohammed bin Khaled Al Abdullah Al Faisal and stc Chief Executive Officer Eng. Olayan M. Alwetaid, extended their warmest felicitations to the wise leadership and the Saudi people on the fifth anniversary of His Royal Highness Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, succeeding the crown as Crown Prince, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense, while commending the unprecedented development that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is witnessing these days, and the huge leaps the KSA Vision 2030 has made in all aspects, which advanced all people living in this great country.
The Saudi achievements today, are the fruit of six years of work under KSA Vision 2030 backed by Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Al Faisal said. His vision constituted a roadmap for all sectors and companies, including stc, which outlined its strategy to grow in unconventional tracks, he said. stc came at the top of the list of communications and information technology (ICT) companies in the Middle East and Africa with a brand value growth of $10.6 billion, he added.
“The Crown Prince focused on digital transformation as the first enabler for strategies and transformation programs across sectors. Given the KSA support for the ICT sector, the Kingdom was keen, in its digital transformation, to qualify national talents, stimulate digital innovation, and train young people on the latest technologies to be leaders of digital transformation and a key factor in the Kingdom’s development and technological leadership. Thus, the KSA has got a solid digital infrastructure that has accelerated the digital transformation and enabled the Kingdom to cope with crises and maintain business continuity in various fields, given the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic”, Al Faisal explained.
“stc is committed to adopting the best global practices in sustainable development and providing support for the Saudi Green Initiative and the Green Middle East Initiative. The initiatives were launched by HRH the Crown Prince as part of Saudi Arabia’s drive to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals and efforts to bring people together in the Middle East to confront climate change through the development of many existing sites and provision solar panels to generate renewable energy and reduce the carbon footprint of these sites. The achievements made, since the succession of His Highness Prince Mohammed bin Salman as Crown Prince five years ago, which coincides with the sixth anniversary of the Kingdom’s Vision 2030 launched by Prince Mohammed bin Salman, created an environment that supports business potential and expanded the economic base. This led to the development of funds, acceleration and incubation that focused on financial technology to provide venture capitals”, added Al Faisal.
For his part, Eng. Olayan M. Alwetaid, CEO of stc, expressed how stc family is gratified of the digital sector’s volume that the Kingdom has achieved, according to the most important international indicators. “The Kingdom has witnessed many achievements and will continue to adopt technologies that ensure the implementation of the digital transformation program. The paradigm shift in digital infrastructure reflected the vision goals and qualitative initiatives. As to 5G networks, it reached more than 75 cities around the Kingdom and more than 3.5 million homes were covered by fiber optic networks”, said Alwetaid.
“The past five years have been full of achievements for stc. It maintained its leadership to be a regional hub for digital services. It also managed to attract the largest technology investments in the Middle East, including the launch of the initiative to establish a major digital MENA Hub and a new company in partnership with the Public Investment Fund (PIF) to support IoT technologies in the Kingdom. stc also established a company specialized in data center hosting services, regional and international connectivity, and the Huawei data center equipment localization plant”, added Alwetaid.
“stc proceeds with its strategy of digital empowerment by leading in cloud services, establishing the largest data hub in the Middle East and providing cybersecurity and digital payment services. As a result, the Council of Ministers approved stc as a digital bank. On another note, stc provide the latest 5G technologies in the Kingdom, and continues to support the local content through Rawafed program and 75 emerging projects in the technological fields”, Alwetaid explained.
“We are proud of the achievements we made over the past five years in the field of digital transformation under directions and support of HRH the Crown Prince, which have played a major role in helping the group to maintain its regional leadership in the ICT sector. We will continue to work on providing the latest technological solutions and developing a reliable and sophisticated digital network and infrastructure, to establish the Kingdom as a leading regional digital service center through innovative projects and global partnerships, that enable the digital transformation of the public and private sectors and reinforce the cloud infrastructure of the local digital economy. This will help promote the digital economy and we will continue to implement the directions of our visionary government to develop our beloved kingdom and vital sectors, support different sectors and help develop vision programs” concluded Alwetaid.
