Mobily: The Fastest Growing Mobile Operator in the Middle East

Eithad-Etisalat consortium is Saudi Arabia’s second telecommunications company. They won the bidding for Saudi’s second GSM license in 2004. It was the following year that they launched Mobily, the fastest growing mobile operator not just in the Middle East but also in North Africa.

It was through Mobily that they were able to break Saudi Telecom’s monopoly in the wireless business. On the 27^th of June of 2006, they were able to launch their 3.5G services and this was followed by the release of their 4G services in 2011.

Just a year after the business started operating,they were able to reach 4,800,000 subscribers and by 2007, they reached a staggering 6 million subscribers and .5 million in their 3G users. They have sales of roughly around $6.3 billion as a result of their aggressive and solid expansion strategy.

They were able to penetrate the Saudi market through direct and indirect sales channels. This resulted to them hitting their targets in 2006, in terms of both sales and revenue goals. Covering the majority of the population they have Mobily employees under their flagship branches, Fully Branded Outlets, Kiosks and dealers across the country.

The company is also noted as being the first to introduce a different push-to-talk service (PTT ) experience for its consumers. Instead of just having a “walkie-talkie” experience, they have lifted the distance issue as they are carrying the conversation through a mobile GSM network.

To further enhance their service, they have modified this feature to allow up to 10 people to join a group calling. They have made this service available to both their prepaid and postpaid subscribers at monthly fees.

It was the GSM Association who described the company as the fastest growing mobile operator in the Middle East through their GSM Association Newsletter in December 2004.

Perky Jerky: The Next Generation of Energy Products

In this consumer-driven market, people are always on the lookout for the next big thing. The 2000s was the decade when drinks like Red Bull and other beverages that promise to perk you up and keep you that way became very popular.  Unfortunately, the added chemicals and artificial ingredients in these energy drinks have earned them a bad reputation

Dubbed as The Action Packed Snack, Perky Jerky aims to give consumers the same alert feeling, without the side effects caused by all the chemicals found in energy drinks.  They use only natural ingredients to create their product, and because it is in the form of a snack, it doesn’t only give you that buzz you are looking for, it also satisfies your in-between-meals food cravings. Since it is also made with natural ingredients, you don’t get all the additives and preservatives you normally get from your run of the mill, store-bought jerky.

ShareThis: Making Sharing on the Web Easier

When browsing through articles or watching videos on the internet, people often see a widget containing several buttons that allow them to share and post the items they like to their social networking profiles and blogs. This very useful button was brought to us by ShareThis, a company that lets you do just that. 

The Palo Alto-based company was founded in 2007 by Dr. David E. Goldberg, an engineering professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and Tim Schigel, a director for Blue Chip, a venture capital firm. Since its inception, the ShareThis widget has become a staple of social media sites and other websites containing information that people like to share with their family, friends, and colleagues.  Aside from being able to share content to a variety of social media sites, people can also choose to send the link to their email and IM contacts. 

Other than making it easier for netizens to share the content that they like with their contacts, ShareThis also benefits site owners, advertisers, bloggers, and online publishers. This is because the share widget also serves as an analytics tool. It records the number of times a video, slideshow, or article has been shared, and this helps individuals and companies understand their audience better. The data collected gives them a solid idea of what topics are the most relevant to internet users and what most people like to see.  They can then find a way to relate that to their brand and give the people what they want.

Although it took some time for the company to grow, it was worth the wait. By 2011, the ShareThis widget could already be found in over 1 million website.  In that same year, Forbes mentioned ShareThis as one of the 16 Companies to Watch with Under $1 Million in Sales.

Ethan Allen: A Tradition of Quality Furniture

“They don’t make them like they used to” is the lament of people looking for quality. Ethan Allen Furniture is one product that is definitely made like it used to. Ethan Allen products are as sturdy today as they ever were.

Ethan Allen’s furniture style is generally American Traditional. The quality and pricing are both geared towards the higher end of the mass market. If well maintained, many sets will last for decades and can even be passed on to the next generation.

The company was founded in 1932 by two Vermont brothers who bought a bankrupt furniture manufacturer. Like any company of its age, it has gone through various economic cycles. At one point, it became part of a conglomerate, but, after a management buyout, it is now an independent firm that is publicly traded.

Although the firm did have to close one of its Vermont plants, it still does most of its manufacturing in the United States. The company’s products are sold through 300 stores located in North America and the United Kingdom.

Flotek: Servicing the Growing Fracking Industry

Hydraulic Fracturing, also known as fracking, has become an important method of extracting energy in the United States. It is estimated that as much as 80% of natural gas will be removed from the ground using this method over the next decade. Thanks to methods such as fracking, the United States can reduce its dependency on foreign sources of energy. This should please both consumers and politicians.

Whenever there is a rush for any resources, one should always keep an eye on the companies that service the miners. For example, everybody has heard of Levi Strauss’s jeans, which he originally created to clothe gold miners; however, few can name any of the miners. The fracking business is no different, dry well or not, someone has to supply them. This includes both drilling equipment and chemicals used in production. Furthermore, these wells become depleted faster than conventional wells, which is good news for anyone who is selling equipment for the next well.

One of the top fracking service companies is Flotek. Founded in 1985, Flotek has grown to be a full service provider in the fracking industry. This would include drilling and production equipment as well as chemicals. The company has subsidiaries that manufacture and lease equipment to the drilling companies.

The market for fracking is solid. It is a commodity, so any investor needs to be concerned about the market turning. However, despite objections from some environmental groups, fracking has become a reality. In fact, fracking miners have realized the importance of maintaining high standards and moved to police themselves. Combine this with a good source of employment for workers and extra income for property owners and it will be hard for states to say no to fracking. This is good news for Flotek.

The demand for the company’s products has translated into an excellent financial picture. Revenues have more than doubled in the past year to $312 million. Operating margins are within the industry average of 16%. After becoming profitable in 2011, Flotek’s earnings doubled in the past year.

Splunk Has Spunk

In the highly competitive software industry, Splunk certainly has spunk! Founded in 2003 by Erik Swan, Rob Das and Michael Baum, the company has grown from its relatively humble beginnings to its competitive nature today – headquarters in San Francisco, California with regional offices across Europe, Asia, and Africa as well as the Middle East; 600 employees and growing; and revenues of US$198.94 million as of 2013.

It now has 3,700 licensed customers from the abovementioned areas with almost half of all Fortune 100 companies including Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, and Credit Suisse now on board.

The company made its initial public offering in 2012 and trades under NASDAQ with ticker name SPLK. Investors are definitely getting in on the act with Splunk considering its growing area of coverage and customer base, thus, its growing potential for dominating its niche.

Splunk produces a wide range of applications essential in searching, monitoring and evaluating real-time, machine-generated data using a web-style interface. The applications then generate reports, graphs and alerts, among others, for use by humans.