Mobily closes gap with stc on overall and 5G video experience

In the latest Opensignal report, titled “Saudi Arabia Mobile Network Experience Report”, stc and Mobily jointly topped both the video categories. While stc’s video experience scores are only slightly different than before, Mobily users have seen an improvement in their video experience, and as a result, both operators are now statistically tied in both categories. Similarly, Mobily has also tied with stc for the Voice App Experience awards.

 Impressively, stc has won all four speed awards, according to Opensignal’s report. Users saw the fastest overall and 5G average download and upload speeds. With a score of 254.8 Mbps, stc has a clear edge in 5G download speed over the second-ranked Mobily, which scored 213.1 Mbps, while Zain, in third place, scored 174.3 Mbps. The rankings are the same for overall download speed, with stc scoring 40.6 Mbps ahead of Mobily’s 33.2 Mbps and Zain's 19.2 Mbps.

Additionally, the report highlighted Saudi Arabia’s aim to continue the market momentum with 5G through new partnerships and investments. In July, Saudi Arabia and the US signed an MoU to boost cooperation in 5G and 6G technologies.

Consistent experience

Mobily once again won both the Excellent Consistent Quality and Core Consistent Quality awards. This indicates that Mobily users saw the greatest proportion of tests that met the minimum thresholds for both regular and more demanding mobile applications.

stc won both the 5G Games Experience and Overall Games Experience awards. Mobily, with a score of 66.1, was not far behind stc’s winning score of 68.4, while Zain trailed with a score of 39. stc secured a bigger victory margin in Overall Games Experience, with a score of 55, again ahead of Mobily - with 51.3 - and Zain in third place with 34.7.

 Meanwhile, stc and Zain jointly won in the 5G availability category, with statistically tied scores of 23.7% and 23.3% respectively. This means that stc and Zain users spent over one-fifth of their time with an active 5G connection. Previously, stc won this award outright. Moreover, Zain now forced a three-way tie in 5G reach, which in the last report was jointly won by stc and Mobily.

5G Video Experience

There are much higher video experience scores using 5G with all three operators compared with the overall video experience observed by Opensignal users across all technologies. Mobily and stc won the 5G Video Experience award, with both scoring slightly over 70 points on a 100-point scale. These winning scores (70.8-71.2) were more than 42% percent higher than the overall video experience winning scores (48.7-49.7).

Zain placed third with a score of 63.2 on a 100-point scale. While Zain's score lags behind that achieved by the 5G video experience leaders, its score is still considerably higher than the 32.8 it scored in the overall video experience category, once again highlighting the value of 5G technology in boosting users’ mobile experience.

5G Games Experience

stc won the 5G Games Experience award with a score of 68.4, just ahead of Mobily’s score of 66.1. However, Zain lost out in this category with a score of 39.

 The winning score of 68.4 experienced by stc users as well as the second-placed score of 66.1 of Mobily has been rated as Fair (65-75). This means that in most cases the game was responsive to the actions of the player, with most users reporting that they felt like they had control over the game. However, some players reported that they noticed a delay between their actions and the outcomes of the game.

5G Voice Experience

Two operators — Mobily and stc — jointly won the 5G Voice App Experience award with statistically tied scores of 80.4-80.7, rated as Good (80-87). Minor quality impairments were experienced by some users. Sometimes the background was not quite clear, it could have been either hazy or not loud enough. Clicking sounds or distortion were very rarely present.

 However, Zain’s score of 73.4 has been rated as Poor (66-74), meaning many users were dissatisfied and call quality impairments were experienced by users.