In this article, we generalize the exponential distribution by compounding the
extended exponential distribution (Gomez et al., 2014) and generalized exponential
distribution (Gupta and Kundu, 2001) and call it modified exponential (ME) distribution.
It includes as special submodels,Kumaraswamy exponential, generalized exponential and
exponential distributions. We providea comprehensive description of the mathematical
properties of the proposed distribution. Theestimation of the model parameters is
performed by the maximum likelihood method. A simulation study is performed to assess
the performance of the maximum likelihood estimators.The usefulness of the modified
exponential distribution for modeling data is illustrated usingreal data set by comparison
with some generalizations of the exponential distribution.