Saudi Telecom Company (STC) is to cut the tariffs on weekend international calls by 40 per cent throughout the summer, the company said.

The discount will cover landline and mobile calls from Thursday afternoon to midnight on Friday between July 5 and September 28, it said in a statement.

With hundreds of thousands of Saudis and expatriates leaving the kingdom to escape the summer heat, telecom operators are looking for ways to maintain revenue on international calls by encouraging those who stay behind to make more calls.

The operators, Saudi Telecom and Etihad Etisalat are also battling competition from by Web telephone operators such as Skype and Paypal, which offer low-cost international calls. Reuters