Riyadh, February 03, 2022, SPA -- The Saudi mobile telecommunications company "Zain Saudi Arabia", in partnership with PLAYHERA and Zain e-Sports, announced the establishment of PLAYHERA MENA (PLAYHERA Middle East and North Africa), with investments amounting to SR375 million over the next five years, the first in the region, during the activities of the LEAP International Technical Conference, in Riyadh, and in honor of the Deputy Minister of Communications and Information Technology, Eng. Haitham bin Abdulrahman Al-Ohali. The partnership aims to enhance the capabilities of e-Sports professionals, nurture local talent in the region’s markets by creating an enabling environment for e-Sports content creators and designers, and qualify popular content makers, through fast and highly developed quality services, by incorporating the latest technologies in this field, which will achieve best results by utilizing the digital infrastructure of "Zain", the strongest and most superior in fifth-generation (5G) services, and will contribute to attracting more individuals and companies involved in electronic games to its interactive platforms, which are a center and multi-featured gaming community. The agreement, which was attended by the Deputy Minister of Communications and Information Technology, Eng. Haitham bin Abdulrahman Al-Ohali, was signed by the CEO of Zain Saudi Arabia, Eng. Sultan bin Abdulaziz Al-Deghaither, and the CEO of PLAYHERA Naif Mulaeb. Al-Deghaither said: "At Zain, we are happy to keep pace with the needs of our digital generation at the Kingdom’s and the regional levels, especially as it is considered an advanced generation that has mastered the use of the latest innovative and modern technologies in the world of e-Sports." For his part, PLAYHERA CEO said: “We are pleased to sign this agreement, which will enable us to provide our services and special offers to players in the Middle East and North Africa region, such as tournaments, cloud games, exclusive content, and electronic stores. We are proud to be a Saudi platform that has become global and we have a presence in the markets major countries such as Japan, which is the cradle of e-Sports.” "We will continue to encourage individuals and companies to enter this field and benefit from the PlayHera platform as a main gateway to the e-sports industry,” he added. Meanwhile, the Group Chief Investment and Digital Officer at Zain, Malik Hammoud, said that this agreement comes in line with the group's strategy of pumping qualitative investments that yield the best results for all parties, be it the sector, companies, or customers. PLAYHERA, which currently has 150,000 active players on its platform, aspires to expand its presence at the regional and international levels to be a leading platform in the field of electronic games and provide its services to all interested individuals and companies. This exclusive agreement will enable further growth of the value of PLAYHERA in the region, to provide value-added services to players such as tournaments, cloud games, exclusive entertainment content, and online stores, and it will also provide a gateway to this industry for sponsors and investors. --SPA 22:30 LOCAL TIME 19:30 GMT 0033 www.spa.gov.sa/w1687138