The two companies agreed the policy during a meeting in Shanghai, at which they also discussed Zain’s plan to introduced 5G mobile services in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
Zain group vice-chairman and CEO Bader Al-Kharafi said: “In recent years we have intensified our focus on the delivery of business-to-business (B2B) solutions, and this agreement adds to the comprehensive range of business-critical offerings we’ll be able to deliver.”
The agreement will see Huawei Cloud services initially launched in Kuwait and across the Middle East, with what the companies described as “a wide range of new offerings being made available to businesses and consumers alike”.
Huawei and Zain quoted Gartner figures showing that the market in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is growing by more than 20% a year, with platform as a service (PaaS) and software as a service (SaaS) being among the fastest growing areas with public cloud service delivery.
At the two-day Shanghai event, Zain executives met counterparts from Huawei to discuss a range of topics related to establishing additional areas of potential cooperation.
Al-Kharafi said: “This agreement bolsters Zain’s efforts in playing a key role in the ‘New Kuwait 2035’ national development plan as the deployment of public cloud services unlocks many opportunities for driving business growth and efficiency, as well as stimulating competition and innovation. It also enhances our ambitions of becoming the operator of choice for governments and enterprises of all sizes across our footprint.”
Charles Yang, president of Huawei Middle East, said: “Public cloud is the cornerstone of digital transformation. I look forward to promoting Huawei Cloud across the MENA with Zain. Huawei will continuously focus on digital transformation, supporting our strategic decision to foster the growth of public cloud services.”
The companies said they assessed the expected business cases for 5G in the region, including its impact on internet of things (IoT), mobility, connectivity, healthcare, government and other sectors. Zain said it was “on track to have its operations in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia be the first to launch 5G commercially”.
