Windows Phone 7 launches in Saudi Arabia

December 21, 2010 | By David Gatti

wp7arabia HTC has launched the HTC HD7, with the HTC Desire HD in Saudi Arabia. The region is traditionally a great consumer of high-end handsets, including previously Windows Mobile handsets.

Mohamed El-Rahawan, marketing manager, HTC Saudi Arabia said “Customers in Saudi Arabia have been eagerly awaiting the launch of these new models. .. As for the HTC HD7, this will be a whole new mobile experience for users thanks to Windows Phone 7. The HD7 is packed with features that will excite and engage users, who will also hugely benefit from the level of customization that the phone offers, which is designed to help users find and use the features optimally and easily,”

Neeraj Seth, MENA marketing manager, HTC Middle East & North Africa, said “the Saudi market has always been extremely receptive to HTC products which makes the Kingdom vital to our market consolidation plans in the region. We believe that the feature-rich HTC Desire and HD7 will particularly appeal to the country’s young, tech savvy population, and accordingly HTC plans to market these phones very innovatively to this segment.”

“HTC has major plans for the KSA market, given its strategic importance to our overall scheme of things in the region. Over the coming period, we will be making significant investments on branding and promotion-related initiatives to create greater visibility for our brand and further build on our ‘connect’ with our growing customer base in the Kingdom,” Kais noted.

According to SaudiWP7.com the handset comes in at a relatively pricy 3290 Riyal (Around $877), but delivers on the promise of Steve Ballmer to have a Windows Phone 7 handset in the area by December. They note Android still does not support Arabic, making Windows Phone 7 a rather attractive proposition.

Windows Phone 7 is set to offer full Asian script support by the middle of 2011. The increasingly rapid roll-out of Windows Phone 7 worldwide would have helped to contribute to the 1.5 million Windows Phone 7 handsets shipped in only 6 weeks.

Via the Saudi Gazette.

Thanks HabeebAlAli and Ubaid for the tip.

About David Gatti

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Tagged htc, htc hd7, saudi arabia, windows phone 7

menny

is there an arbic keyboard for windows phone 7?

http://wmpoweruser.com wmpoweruser

Not as far as I know so far.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100001452991690 WhoiamisnotImportant Mclaurin

Slowly but steady. I'm in love with WP7. Goodbye and good riddance BlackBerry.
Hazem

Arabic support is not complete in windows phone 7, you can only read contact names, messages and emails in arabic, but not yet an input method.

Arabic and Asian language support are said to be expected soon by the january update, but nothing sure yet.

I cannot imagine windows phone 7 launch in MENA reigon without arabic language support, i guess we will know soon enough with promises from many carriers in the region about the upcoming wp7 devices in KSA, Egypt and Emirates.
http://www.facebook.com/saadhashmi73 Saad Hashmi

I just moved from the Middle East back to the U.S. after two years, and I can completely confirm that anyone who is well off probably has some kind of high end phone (most of my fellow high school students had BlackBerry 9700s and before that they all had Nokia high-end S60 phones).
Beezer

If they market the WP7 devices like they did with the iPhone. You will see another million sold, easily. Those guys love to buy the newest and greatest high end phones. Arabic support is working just as good as the iPhone did, and it only chops up with emails and websites. So that'll be fine for them I believe.

They just have to introduce a bigger lineup than the crappy HTC devices. Samsung and Dell would work tremendously well. HTC devices have nothing "breakthrough" to offer.

Guest

Every phone available has flaws, but gotta love the HTC hate that seems to be popping up everywhere. Must be screen size envy. Or is it that people's preferred brand/phone is not available from their carrier of choice?