The unique market demographics across Zain’s different operating communities present both challenges and opportunities for its commercial activities. The industry’s competitive landscape provides Zain with the opportunity to prioritize brand differentiation across its markets by launching inclusive products and services to meet the needs of different segments such as people with disabilities, environmentally conscious consumers, the elderly, and youth. For example, Zain KSA effectively offered unique packages such as SHABAB, FLEX and VISITOR, which aim to further engage with targeted communities such as youth, blue collar workers, expats, and pilgrimage visitors.

However, this tailored approach is not without its challenges. A key challenge facing Zain’s operations is the rapidly evolving regulatory context. To address this, the company is consistently ensuring that it is up to date and compliant with any new regulation introduced to the market. Another challenge evident in markets such as Sudan and South Sudan is the volatility of the local currency and economic instability coupled with the geopolitical conflict. Due to the large geography and scattered population in Iraq, the company faces difficulty in ensuring it can continuously increase its digital touchpoints to meet the needs of its customers. Zain Kuwait faces the challenge of promoting sustainable products and services with low environmental impact, which often come at a higher cost. Educating consumers on the long-term benefits of such products is important in addressing this barrier.

Within this context, the following section highlights Zain’s main commercial products and services:

• Economic Performance
• Zain’s Value Chain
• Core Services
• Non-Core Services
• Marketing, Advertising and Communications
• Zain Subsidiaries

The Board of Directors recommended a cash dividend of 25 fils per share for the second half of 2024, subject to Annual General Assembly approval. This dividend follows the semi-annual dividend of 10 fils distributed in 2024, totaling 35 fils per share for the year 2024.

Zain’s value chain covers various streams, each crucial in supporting the company’s core activities and addressing customer needs. Zain’s value chain mainly consists of network and equipment suppliers, product R&D, hardware and software producers, cloud service providers, system integrators, and distribution networks. The company determines the value it generates through its value chain from a business, society, and environmental perspective demonstrated below:

These suppliers are crucial for maintaining and expanding Zain’s network infrastructure. They provide the technology necessary for reliable and high-quality network services, which directly impacts Zain’s ability to provide quality products to its customers.

Product research and development (R&D) drives innovation, leading to the creation of new technologies and services that can enhance quality of life. Within Zain’s value chain, R&D plays a critical role in developing innovative communications tools and digital services. These advancements improve connectivity and accessibility for diverse communities across the MENA region, aligning with Zain’s commitment to enabling inclusive and sustainable digital transformation.

A growing number of hardware and software producers are increasingly focusing on sustainable practices, such as energy-efficient components and reducing e-waste. Adopting these practices helps Zain reduce its carbon footprint associated with technology production and usage.

Cloud service providers enable Zain to offer scalable solutions to its customers, facilitating efficient data storage, management, and processing. This supports business agility and allows Zain to adapt to market demands and technological advancements.

System integrators enhance operational efficiency by ensuring that different technology systems work together. This integration reduces costs and improves overall performance, contributing to more effective service delivery and innovation.

Effective distribution channels ensure that products and services reach customers efficiently, including marginalized or remote communities. This increases access to essential services and helps bridge digital gaps.

This section examines the various channels through which Zain delivers its products and services to customers, as well as the job opportunities generated by these channels highlighting the company’s impact on the social capital. It also showcases examples of core services developed specifically to cater to targeted communities.

This year, through its distribution channels, Zain generated 113,967 jobs that helped boost economic activity across its markets.

Between January – June 2024, Zain Sudan successfully relaunched its product portfolio, to all targeted marketing segments, despite numerous challenges posed by the network shutdown and the limitations of the disaster recovery charging system. The key achievements during this period included:

• Introduction of a new Unified USSD menu with dynamic features tailored to different target segments, enhancing customer experience across various segments.
• Launch of a new voice packages portfolio, offering a variety of options with different validities and resources, specifically designed to cater to the needs of different market segments including mass, youth and high ARPU customers (HAC).
• Restoration of the internet-on-mobile and data cards packages, along with the introduction of new weekly packages, targeting specific customer preferences.
• Relaunch of the Taktik portfolio – Zain Sudan’s differentiated offerings with competitive data pricing per unit, customized to meet the increased data connectivity demand in the current market situation. As of June 2024, Taktik counted 804,326 subscribers.
• Launch of a Hajj offer, featuring a special roaming package for customers traveling to Saudi Arabia.
  Restoration of the International and Roaming portfolio, ensuring the provision of essential services for customers.

Zain Jordan’s Basma Line is now revamped to Basma Line+, which is a mobile bundle package tailored for deaf and mute customers. The revamped line was developed based on focus group sessions conducted with the target audience. Based on the feedback, Zain Jordan doubled the cellular data available within the bundle to 25GBs, 3,000 minutes of video calls, 20,000 minutes on Zain lines, 3,000 minutes local calling minutes on other networks, and 3,000 local SMS and zero rating on calling the 114-emergency line.

In addition, during the year, Zain Jordan launched the 114 emergency application, which provides a video platform feature for the emergency number of the Kingdom to enable people from the deaf community to report emergencies across any mobile network. This application is a continuation of the development of the emergency line project for the deaf community (114), under a specialized work stream that focuses on developing tools to support people with disabilities to access communications and information technology services. Currently, 290 subscribers are subscribed to the Basma Line number bundle. Zain Jordan is working on migrating subscribers from the older version to use Basma Line+.

Zain Kuwait continues to offer Kaspersky Safe Kids, an all-in-one parental control app to help protect children online. Features of this application include:

• GPS tracking and alerts: Ability to find a child on a map, geofence a safe area for them to remain in, and receive an alert should the child leave it
• YouTube Safe Search: Ability to view a child’s YouTube search history and restrict inappropriate content
• Website filters: The ability to block adult content and customize a list of sites and applications that a child can only visit with the adult’s permission.
• Screen time and application usage: Manage the child’s screen time per day, per device in alignment to the schedule and rules.

Launched last year, there are a total of 16 activations per day to date and 501 active subscriptions.

In line with Zain Group’s commitment to ethical and transparent marketing and communications, the Responsible Marketing and Communications Standard was launched on March 6, 2024. This Standard was developed following an internal benchmarking assessment exercise using UNICEF’s Child Rights Impact Self-Assessment Tool for Mobile Operators (MO-CRIA) ‘Products, Sales, & Marketing’ category, where the company evaluated the commercial practices of all its operating companies concerning children’s rights.

The Responsible Marketing and Communications Standard reflects Zain’s dedication to maintaining the highest levels of responsibility, transparency, and ethics in its marketing and communication activities. It ensures that Zain’s practices do not exploit marginalized or vulnerable populations and promote inclusivity and diversity. The key principles outlined in the Standard include:

Transparent Communication: Zain pledges to provide clear, accurate, and understandable information in its marketing communications, with a particular focus on responsibly marketing products and services to children. This includes distinguishing promotional content from non-promotional material and avoiding exaggeration or misleading information.

1. Ethical Advertising: Zain adheres to laws, regulations, and industry standards, such as UNICEF’s MO-CRIA, ensuring that marketing materials for child-directed products and services are suitable for all age groups. Additionally, Zain avoids exploiting children’s vulnerabilities and using deceptive or manipulative techniques.
2. Inclusive Marketing: Zain’s marketing materials and campaigns promote diversity and inclusion, challenge stereotypes, and avoid discriminatory practices. Zain commits to not engaging with organizations involved in discriminatory actions.
3. Parental and Guardian Consent: Zain obtains parental consent when collecting personal information from children, provides clear instructions on managing a child’s participation in marketing activities, and ensures campaigns involving children comply with local laws and prioritize their safety.
4. Responsible Use of Digital Channels: Zain prioritizes child safety in digital marketing content and platforms, complies with its data privacy regulations, and encourages balanced technology use among children.
   Purpose-Driven Partnerships: Zain seeks partnerships with organizations and individuals sharing its commitment to responsible marketing, conducting due diligence to ensure partners align with its standards of transparency, ethics, and equality.

The scope of the Standard covers Zain’s Commercial/Marketing Communications, Corporate Communications, and Branding departments and extends to all Zain operations, subsidiaries, suppliers, and third parties involved in creating Zain-branded content. The Standard is being implemented across the Group with suppliers acknowledging and aligning to the Standard. In addition, all new employees need to align to the Standard to ensure proper implementation.

Please find the link to the Responsible Marketing & Communications Standard Policy Statement here.

By focusing on real business challenges, ZainTECH’s team of industry-specialized experts work with customers to design and build the best digital solutions for their specific organization. With regional centers of expertise across eight countries in the MEA/Middle East region, region, in-country cloud-based platforms, and digital assets, ZainTECH delivers its services with lower risks and less upfront capital investment.

ZainTECH’s approach to sustainability with respect to products and services is twofold – specific solutions for sustainability, and an approach to weave sustainability outcomes into everything it does from each business unit.

ZainTECH Sustainability platform provides integrated smart building solutions optimizing energy, reducing carbon emissions, and lowering operational costs. Our cloud-based platform consolidates fragmented systems into one unified interface, delivering real-time insights, asset control, and actionable recommendations, accelerating compliance and efficiency.

Our digital solutions enable sustainability across all ZainTECH’s solutions by leveraging advanced analytics, IoT, and automation to optimize resource efficiency, lower environmental impact, and proactively reduce energy consumption and emissions.

Sustainability in and from the Cloud – driving green transformation:

Reduce operating requirements and migrate IT workloads into more sustainable datacenters with an accelerated shift towards sustainable energy and clear decarbonization targets that are up to 98% more carbon efficient than traditional on-premise datacenters.

Data-driven sustainability – enabling smarter green decisions: Enables organizations to leverage their data to make better-informed, more sustainable decisions while efficiently managing the escalating costs of handling large and growing data sets, thus supporting their ESG goals by optimizing resource use, reducing environmental impact, and improving governance.

Cybersecurity and sustainability – protecting data and the environment:

Enable organizations to reduce their carbon footprint, while maintaining or even improving organizational protection and resilience by mapping security controls according to risks and emissions, and focusing on themes with a high potential for reducing emissions, but with little or no impact on the level of risk.

Conduct safe, non-invasive inspections to reduce operational downtime. Accurate data and collection and maintenance enhancements. Eliminates need for heavy equipment to lower emissions and preserve surroundings.

Dizlee, Zain’s API platform provider, is a digital monetization ecosystem operator offering an appealing array of content and gaming services, direct billing, messaging, and digital authentication services, among other solutions, on one platform. To standardize the digital services offerings in Zain’s markets, as a one-stop-shop, Dizlee boats one of the largest premium customer bases in the region, enabling growth opportunities for digital content providers. Dizlee is committed to streamlining partners’ needs regarding contractual relationships and financial reconciliations.

In Q2 2024, Dizlee soft launched the first API marketplace in the region, a bold initiative that places it at the forefront of digital transformation. The API marketplace serves as a hub for partnerships across multiple industries, with an initial focus on a Communication Platform as a Service (CPaaS) solution. These services cater to delivery companies, fintech firms, and insurance providers, with offerings ranging from number masking and call recording to location sharing—all designed to meet the specific needs of enterprises.

What sets Dizlee’s API marketplace apart is its ability to offer tailor-made solutions for various industries while maintaining a customer-centric and agile approach. This adaptability enables enterprises to integrate digital services rapidly, making it easier for them to meet their clients’ ever evolving requirements.