Zain Jordan, the kingdom's biggest mobile telecoms network operator, expects revenue to rise by five per cent this year despite tougher competition and heavy government taxes, the firm's chief executive said.

"We are anticipating overall growth in revenues of around 4 to 5 per cent this year," Ahmad Hanandeh told Reuters on the sidelines of a business conference.

Last year Zain Jordan, which has a 38 per cent market share, 4.1 million subscribers and is a subsidiary of Kuwait's Zain group, generated revenues of 360 million dinars ($507 million).

The Jordanian company launched a 4G mobile broadband service in February, the first among three foreign operators in the country to launch high speed internet services.

"4G will compensate for the drop in traditional voice services and text messaging and give us the competitive edge," Hanandeh said.

Jordan's internet penetration is almost 70 per cent in a country that has at least 1 million Syrian refugees and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis fleeing violence.

Many Middle East telecom firms, particularly in the wealthy Gulf, have installed 4G networks that potentially offer a mobile internet service that is more than twice the speed of 3G, but a shortage of 4G-enabled handsets has caused a slower than expected consumer take-up of this technology.

Zain Jordan has already invested 200 million dinars ($282 million) on getting a 4G service up and running, with 142 million dinars alone paid to get the radio frequencies, Hanandeh said.

Another 100 million dinars are to be invested in the next three years to expand the network, Hanandeh said.

This is in addition to 85 million dinars to be spent this year on expanding the company's overall network.

Hanandeh forecast data would overtake traditional voice and services as a main revenue stream within five years.

At the moment data accounts for around 30 percent of revenues.-Reuters