Virgin Mobile Middle East & Africa (VMMEA) has launched an MVNO service in Saudi Arabia, a move that threatens to shake up the kingdom’s mobile market.

VMMEA is launching two brands — Virgin Mobile targeted at the youth market and Friendi Mobile for the Kingdom’s expatriate community.

In addition to VMMEA piggybacking on the network of number one operator STC, rival MVNO Jawraa Lebara is partnered with Mobily, the kingdom’s second-largest operator

Dubai retailer Axiom Telecom linked up with Zain Saudi, the country’s third operator, but the regulator subsequently ordered that licence to be retendered in a process that is still not completed, according to Reuters.

The idea is that each Saudi operator separately strikes a deal with an MVNO.

However, both VMMEA and Jawraa have reportedly had problems finalising interconnection deals and meeting state security concerns. These hurdles have set back their launch dates.

Saudi Arabia is only the second Gulf market after Oman to license MVNOs.

Arguably, this is the biggest boost to competition in the Saudi market since Zain became its third operator in 2008.

However, the Virgin-backed venture is no novice in the wider region. In fact, it claims to be the only MVNO in the Middle East and Africa with five live operations.

It runs MVNO operations in South Africa, Oman, Jordan and Malaysia, as well as what it terms “an outsourced B-brand” in Saudi Arabia. B-brands are usually low-price, local version of renowned foreign brands.

Its target is to launch and run ten operations across the region in total over the next five years.

Virgin-backed VMMEA was first formed in 2006, and then formed a strategic partnership with Friendi Mobile in 2012.