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Zain is the sole winner of our inaugural Video Experience award, with a score of 72.7 points on a 100 point scale, and a lead of 2.2 points on second-placed stc — which scored 70.5 points. Both Zain and stc placed in the Very Good category (65<75) for Video Experience. Ooredoo follows at some distance, having scored 54.7 points, narrowly missing the lower threshold of the Good category (55<65).
Our Kuwaiti users enjoyed a similar Download Speed Experience on the three national operators as Ooredoo, stc and Zain shared the inaugural award with statistically tied scores of 39.1-41.2 Mbps.
Two of Kuwait’s operators share the top position for Games Experience in our first report on the mobile experience in the country. Ooredoo and Zain are joint winners with statistically tied scores of 64.3 and 62.1 points on a 100-point scale, while stc is not far behind having scored 59.2 points.
While we observed a three-way tie for the Download Speed Experience award, Ooredoo places ahead in Upload Speed Experience and is the sole winner of this award. Our Kuwaiti users on Ooredoo’s network saw average upload speeds of 15.5 Mbps, followed by Zain and stc’s users with 14.4 Mbps and 12.2 Mbps, respectively.
Ooredoo, stc and Zain share victory in the 4G Availability award with statistically tied scores in the 94.4-94.8% range. This means that our Kuwaiti users could access 4G or better services close to 95% of the time. The three operators also had very similar scores in our other measure of the extent of a network — 4G Coverage Experience — but in this case Ooredoo and Zain are the two joint winners with their respective statistically tied scores of 9.7 and 9.8 points on a 10-point scale, while stc narrowly missed sharing victory having scored 9.6 points.
In Opensignal's first mobile network experience report on Kuwait we find fierce competition between Ooredoo, stc and Zain. Ooredoo and Zain win one award outright each, and are joint winners in all remaining categories, but stc shares the top position with its two rivals in Voice App Experience, Download Speed Experience and 4G Availability.
In this report, we’ve analyzed the mobile experience of our Kuwaiti users across all three national operators — Ooredoo, stc and Zain — over the 90 day period starting October 1, 2021 and ending December 29, 2021. Our results include measurements from 5G devices. We have also published a companion report — Kuwait 5G Experience Report — which analyzes the experience of our 5G users when connected to 5G.
This report includes the overall experience for all smartphone users, but we also publish supporting metrics for 5G users' experience. The difference is that these 5G users results reflect the overall experience across all mobile technologies — 3G, 4G and 5G — of 5G users alone, while the overall results are the average scores across all smartphone users, whether or not they have 5G.
| Mobile Experience Awards Kuwait | |||
|---|---|---|---|
February 2022,
Kuwait Report
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O
Ooredoo
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s
stc
|
Z
Zain
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Video Experience
| |||
Games Experience
| |||
Voice App Experience
| |||
Download Speed Experience
| |||
Upload Speed Experience
| |||
4G Availability
| |||
4G Coverage Experience
| |||
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Mobile Experience Awards Winners
|
February 2022,
Kuwait
|
|---|---|
|
Video Experience
|
Z
Zain
|
|
Upload Speed Experience
|
O
Ooredoo
|
|
Mobile Experience Awards Draws
|
February 2022, Kuwait
|
|---|---|
|
Games Experience
|
O
Ooredoo
Z
Zain
|
|
Voice App Experience
|
O
Ooredoo
s
stc
Z
Zain
|
|
Download Speed Experience
|
O
Ooredoo
s
stc
Z
Zain
|
|
4G Availability
|
O
Ooredoo
s
stc
Z
Zain
|
|
4G Coverage Experience
|
O
Ooredoo
Z
Zain
|
Zain is the sole winner of the Video Experience award, having scored 72.7 points on a 100 point scale. The operator commanded a lead of 2.2 points on stc and 18 points on Ooredoo as the two scored 70.5 and 54.7 points, respectively.
Zain and stc earned Very Good (65<75) ratings. This means that our users on those two networks experienced generally fast loading times and only occasional stalling but their experience might have been somewhat inconsistent across video providers and resolutions. Ooredoo instead placed in the Fair category (40<55), which means our users did not have a good experience either for higher resolution videos or for some video streaming providers.
|
Video Experience
Additional Metrics |
O
Ooredoo
|
s
stc
|
Z
Zain
|
|---|---|---|---|
| in 0-100 points | |||
|
Video Experience – 5G Users
| 54.6 (± 3.16) | 75.9 (± 2.39) | 78.5 (± 1.39) |
| Video Experience – 5G Users | in 0-100 points |
|
O
Ooredoo
|
55 (± 3.16) |
|
s
stc
|
76 (± 2.39) |
|
Z
Zain
|
79 (± 1.39) |
Ooredoo and Zain are joint winners of the Games Experience award, with statistically tied scores of 64.3 and 62.1 points on a 100 point scale. This means that our Kuwaiti users had their best experience playing multiplayer mobile games on the two operators’ networks. However, stc hasn’t placed far behind, as it scored 59.2 points, meaning that stc could easily challenge its rivals for this award going forward.
|
Games Experience
Additional Metrics |
O
Ooredoo
|
s
stc
|
Z
Zain
|
|---|---|---|---|
| in 0-100 points | |||
|
Games Experience – 5G Users
| 70.4 (± 3.10) | 65.5 (± 3.15) | 70.0 (± 2.92) |
| Games Experience – 5G Users | in 0-100 points |
|
O
Ooredoo
|
70 (± 3.10) |
|
s
stc
|
66 (± 3.15) |
|
Z
Zain
|
70 (± 2.92) |
Games Experience measures how mobile users experience real-time multiplayer mobile gaming on an operator’s network. Measured on a scale of 0-100, it analyzes how the multiplayer mobile gaming experience is affected by mobile network conditions including latency, packet loss and jitter. Additionally, it considers multiple genres of multiplayer mobile games to measure the average sensitivity to network conditions. The games tested include some of the most popular real-time multiplayer mobile games (such as Fortnite, Pro Evolution Soccer and Arena of Valor) played around the world.
Voice App Experience is the only experiential category in which we have observed a three-way tie among the three national Kuwaiti operators. Ooredoo, stc and Zain are joint winners of this category with statistically tied scores in the 79.1-79.4 range, all earning an Acceptable rating (74<80) and narrowly falling short of the 80-point threshold which marks the Good category (80<87).
An Acceptable rating indicates that listeners were generally able to comprehend without repetition, but some users experienced perceptible call quality impairments such as clicking sounds and distortion of short duration.
|
Voice App Experience
Additional Metrics |
O
Ooredoo
|
s
stc
|
Z
Zain
|
|---|---|---|---|
| in 0-100 points | |||
|
Voice App Experience – 5G Users
| 80.6 (± 1.35) | 80.3 (± 1.20) | 81.6 (± 1.05) |
| Voice App Experience – 5G Users | in 0-100 points |
|
O
Ooredoo
|
81 (± 1.35) |
|
s
stc
|
80 (± 1.20) |
|
Z
Zain
|
82 (± 1.05) |
Opensignal's Voice App Experience measures the quality of experience for over-the-top (OTT) voice services — mobile voice apps such as WhatsApp, Skype and Facebook Messenger — using a model derived from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) approach for quantifying overall voice call quality and a series of calibrated technical parameters. This model characterizes the exact relationship between the technical measurements and perceived call quality. Voice App Experience for each operator is calculated on a scale from 0 to 100.
The inaugural Download Speed Experience award resulted in a three-way tie among the Kuwaiti operators as Ooredoo, stc and Zain achieved statistically tied scores of 39.1 Mbps, 39.5 Mbps and 41.2 Mbps, respectively.
However, when we look at the overall experience of just our 5G users a different story emerges. Our 5G users had their fastest average download speeds on Ooredoo and Zain’s networks, as the two scores of 196.2 Mbps and 175.1 Mbps are statistically tied — while the slowest speeds were seen on stc — 124 Mbps. In addition, Ooredoo wins the 5G Download Speed award in the companion report, which analyzes the experience of our users when they were connected to 5G.
|
Download Speed Experience
Additional Metrics |
O
Ooredoo
|
s
stc
|
Z
Zain
|
|---|---|---|---|
| in Mbps | |||
|
Download Speed Experience – 5G Users
| 196.2 (± 18.36) | 124.0 (± 8.51) | 175.1 (± 13.08) |
| Download Speed Experience – 5G Users | in Mbps |
|
O
Ooredoo
|
196 (± 18.36) |
|
s
stc
|
124 (± 8.51) |
|
Z
Zain
|
175 (± 13.08) |
Ooredoo wins the Upload Speed Experience award securing one of the only two sole victories we have recorded in this inaugural report on the mobile experience in Kuwait. Ooredoo leads in this category with a score of 15.5 Mbps and a 1.1 Mbps lead over its closest rival — Zain — which scored 14.4 Mbps. Finally, stc places third as users on its network on average experienced 12.2 Mbps in upload speed.
Things play out differently in terms of the overall experience of our 5G users. This time we see a statistical tie in the overall upload speeds observed by our Ooredoo and Zain 5G users, as the two scored 22.4 Mbps and 21.2 Mbps, respectively, while the slowest speeds were seen by our 5G users on stc — 14.7 Mbps.
|
Upload Speed Experience
Additional Metrics |
O
Ooredoo
|
s
stc
|
Z
Zain
|
|---|---|---|---|
| in Mbps | |||
|
Upload Speed Experience – 5G Users
| 22.4 (± 1.95) | 14.7 (± 1.25) | 21.2 (± 1.51) |
| Upload Speed Experience – 5G Users | in Mbps |
|
O
Ooredoo
|
22 (± 1.95) |
|
s
stc
|
15 (± 1.25) |
|
Z
Zain
|
21 (± 1.51) |
Ooredoo, stc and Zain are joint winners of the 4G Availability award, with statistically tied scores of 94.5%, 94.8% and 94.4%, respectively. 4G Availability shows the average proportion of time Opensignal users spent with a 4G or better connection on each operator's network.
Ooredoo and Zain are joint winners of the 4G Coverage Experience award, with scores of 9.7 and 9.8 points on a 10 point scale. They are followed by stc in third place with 9.6 points, which narrowly missed its rivals’ scores.
4G Coverage Experience measures how mobile subscribers experience 4G coverage on an operator’s network. Measured on a scale of 0-10, it analyzes the locations where customers of a network operator received a 4G signal relative to the locations visited by users of all network operators.
Collecting billions of individual measurements daily from over 100 million devices globally, Opensignal independently analyzes mobile user experience on every major network operator around the globe.
Opensignal is the mobile analytics company committed to improving mobile connectivity across the globe. We are the independent authority for understanding the true experience consumers receive on wireless networks.
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