Saudi Telecom Company (STC) joined Bridge Alliance, a group of Asian operators focusing on roaming and the development of enterprise and M2M services.

The Saudi mobile market leader joins 35 other operators with a combined customer base of 660 million subscribers. STC alone brings 23 million subscribers.

Alessandro Adriani, CEO of Bridge Alliance, said the addition of STC extends geographical reach, and enhances managed mobility services and M2M services for member operators and their customers.

“In addition, STC Saudi enables our members to enhance their market position and gain competitive advantage through our solutions and propositions,” Adriani added.

Operator members of Bridge Alliance include India’s Bharti Airtel, Thailand’s AIS, CSL in Hong Kong, Globe Telecom (Philippines), Maxis (Malaysia), Mobifone (Vietnam), Optus (Australia), SingTel (Singapore), SK Telecom (South Korea), Taiwan Mobile and Indonesia’s Telkomsel.

M2M was added to the group’s remit in January in a bid to eliminate complexity for multinationals wanting to provide these services across Asia.

“Asia is made up of highly varied economies, uneven technological development and diversified regulatory requirements. As a result, multinational businesses find it extremely difficult to navigate the intricacies of the region and to fully capitalise on economies of scale,” Adriani said in January.

The M2M announcement followed the announcement of a global M2M service at the end of 2013 by the M2M World Alliance. The latter group includes members with a presence in Australia, Japan and Singapore. The only crossover in terms of membership with the new group is SingTel.