The ampersand had a good run. The UAE telecoms group that rebranded as e& in 2022 is going back to Etisalat, the name it launched with in 1976, and it picked its 50th anniversary to do it.
The change was confirmed on Tuesday, October 6, in a filing to the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange, where the group’s shares trade. “Etisalat is the name we are taking forward – a name that reflects our heritage, our strategy and our ambition for the AI era,” the company said. The announcement was made in the presence of Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed, Vice President, Deputy Prime Minister and Chairman of the Presidential Court, and the operator followed it with an open letter to customers and a post on X declaring: “We are etisalat. We always have been. We always will be.”
Why the name is coming back
The original switch, announced in February 2022, was meant to signal a move from a traditional telco into a global technology and investment conglomerate. The “e” stood for its connectivity roots and the “&” for everything else: digital services, fintech, cloud, IoT and AI. A few months later the UAE consumer business became “etisalat by e&”.
The reasoning for the reversal sounds much like the reasoning for the original change. The company now says “Etisalat means connection” and that the name carries more weight as it brings “connectivity, digital capabilities and infrastructure together”. Telecoms.com called it a U-turn, while pointing out that the group website still lists subsidiaries such as e& International and e& Capital, so the ampersand hasn’t disappeared everywhere yet.
Alongside the name, Etisalat launched a project to expand its digital infrastructure in the UAE and abroad, including plans to lift international connectivity capacity to more than 500Tbps by 2030, which it says is over 25 times what it has today. The group is coming off a 9 per cent rise in second-quarter revenue to AED 19.2 billion, with its customer base reaching 251.5 million, and in July it agreed to sell its entire Vodafone stake for $5.95 billion to refocus on core businesses. It has also been busy on the network side, recently switching on a commercial Upper 6GHz network in the UAE.
What changes for UAE customers
So far, very little beyond the logo. Neither the filing nor the anniversary letter announces any change to plans, numbers, contracts or billing, and nothing asks customers to take action. The rebrand is already showing up in customer-facing places: the anniversary promotions page on eand.ae is now titled “etisalat UAE” and refers to the “etisalat UAE app”. The company hasn’t given a timeline for renaming the app in stores, the eand.ae domain or shop signage.
The more immediate change is free data. According to Khaleej Times, customers received SMS messages on Tuesday offering 1GB for every year they’ve been with the operator, rising to 10GB per year on the Emirati plan. Reports differ on the cut-off: Khaleej Times says October 13, Gulf News says October 12, so go by the date in your own SMS. There are also more than ten anniversary packs, including 50GB for AED 200 over 30 days, plus extra data on select roaming bundles. The licence the operator relies on isn’t in question either, after the TDRA renewed both e& and du for 20 years in August.
Saudi Arabia and Egypt
The announcement doesn’t mention any change to the group’s businesses outside the UAE. In Egypt, the operator still trades as e& Egypt, and in Saudi Arabia the group is an investor in Mobily, which runs under its own brand. Nothing has been announced for customers in either market.
Do I need to do anything because e& is now Etisalat?
No. The company hasn’t announced any changes to plans, numbers, bills or payment methods, and hasn’t asked customers to take any action.
How do I get the free anniversary data?
Eligible customers were sent an SMS on October 6. The amount depends on how long you’ve been a customer, and it expires around October 12 or 13, depending on the message.
Is e& Egypt changing its name too?
There’s been no announcement about the Egyptian business, which still operates as e& Egypt.
