Saudi Arabian telecommunications provider Etihad Etisalat has set up an Indian subsidiary to provide IT and consulting support for its mobile-phone operations and save on costs.

Etihad Etisalat, which sells cellular phone services under the Mobily brand name, said Bangalore-based Mobily InfoTech India will extend the capabilities of its information-technology division, according to a report in the Gulf Daily News.

It 'will add more skilled manpower to Mobily's IT division and allow the company to handle much tighter IT project deadlines needed to improve both the time-to-market and quality of service,' said Mobily chief executive Khalid Alkaf.

'With the difference in time zones, we can now work round-the-clock to provide better services to our customers,' he said in a statement, adding it would result in a more than 30 per cent saving in costs.

Mobily Infotech, its first subsidiary outside Saudi Arabia, has employed more than 70 IT professionals and their number is expected to grow to more than 200 by the end of this year, the statement said.

The venture is expected to create about 800 jobs in five years.

Mobily is the second GSM operator in Saudi Arabia, launching its services in May, 2005, and passing the one million subscriber mark in less than three months. The firm had a profit of $368m on revenue of $2.24 billion last year.