Facts & Figures:

  • The country has 17,820 square kilometres (6,880 square miles) of land with a 2019 population estimated at 4.25 million, which includes over one million Kuwaitis and more than two million expatriates.
  • The International Telecommunication Union provides data for Kuwait from 1960 to 2017.
  • The average value for Kuwait during that period was 1.43 million subscribers with a minimum of 0 million subscribers in 1960 and a maximum of 7.66 million subscribers in 2015.
  • There are three mobile network operators: Zain, Viva and Ooredoo, each operator has its own guidelines and regulations.

Flows & Rules:

  • In order to host a VAS service in Kuwait, it requires specific legal documentation. Through partnership with a local specialist, Empello can arrange for assistance, and allow you to focus on your launch.
  • All VAS landing pages are hosted by the operators / aggregators. Merchants need to follow the guidelines in order to host their VAS services.
  • Major aggregators operating in Kuwait are: SLA and Comviva.
  • The subscription flow is mainly an OTP flow and SMS click flow on Viva. In Ooredoo it has a subscription of SMS click flow & Header Enrichment 1 click or 2 click flow depending on different VAS services. The subscription flow that Zain uses for all VAS landing pages is mainly MSISDN/PIN payment flow as at September 2019.
Note
The information above is correct at the time of publication, but seek specific advice prior to launching or running a service.