COVID-19 pandemic a catalyst for growth in Kingdom: Telecoms firm Nokia

COVID-19 pandemic a catalyst for growth in Kingdom: Telecoms firm Nokia

JEDDAH: When the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic hit early last year, Saudi residents were forced to stay at home. As a result, the number of hours spent by people on platforms such as Netflix and Zoom soared. Shopping on Amazon, grocery, and restaurant apps became commonplace, gaming boomed, and dependence on the internet was considered just as important as having electricity and water connections. And one of the companies that helped the Kingdom manage the surge in demand for its telecommunication services was Nokia. Khalid Hussain, Saudi country senior officer at Nokia, told Arab News: "There was an almost 30 percent traffic spike in Saudi Arabia soon after the pandemic declaration in March 2020. Many of the organizations had to switch to complete remote mode without any time for preparation. "The sudden transition to working from home resulted in a rapid increase in data-intensive business collaboration and video streaming applications. Our customers had a huge challenge to continue to support their users with robust, reliable, and fully secure networks so that business continuity was not hampered.“ The Finnish brand is best known for its mobiles from the early 2000s, when it launched some of the first camera phones on the