Pakistan's Telecom Boom Continues
Telecom sector is attracting the largest share of foreign direct investment in Pakistan. Foreign investors pumped in $364m into it during July-Sept 2007 quarter, according to the latest figures released by Pakistan Telecommunications Authority. The total FDI in Pakistan for this 3-month period was $962.5m.
The number of cellular subscribers in Pakistan has crossed 76m in Dec, 2007, from 500,000 in 2004. According to Business Recorder, Pakistan's financial daily, most forecasters believe that the upward trend will continue in the next 5 years because of the huge market potential, particularly in the rural areas where the build-out has yet to happen. Opreators such as Wateen (with Motorola) are planning a large Wimax roll-out to improve voice and high bandwidth data access across the country. The biggest mobile operators in Pakistan include Mobilink with 30m subscribers, Ufone with 16m, Telenor with 14m, Warid with 13m and Paktel with 1m.
It must be noted that FDI is different from stock market investments. FDI money goes to build factories, infrastructure and facilities rather than the purchase of financial assets such as stocks and bonds by mutual funds.
According to Pakistan's Daily Times, Pakistan’ telecom boom has created more than 300,000 jobs in the telecom sector. This has resulted in huge demand for professional and capable telecom workforce that can expertly meet the new age requirements of these positions. Creative public private partnerships are being established to meet this demand.
Thanks to Pakistanis' rising incomes, which have more than doubled to over US$900 per year in the last seven years, and increased competition, the teledensity rate is expected to go over 50 percent in the next couple of years, according to officials and analysts. Opportunities such as these are fueling the continuing growth in the middle class which further enhances the ongoing consumer boom. By various estimates, the Pakistani middle class has now grown to over 30m people, about 20% of the total population. The size of this middle class makes Pakistan an attractive opportunity for investors, in spite of the continuing political uncertainty with the approaching elections in February, 2008. Analysts such as Merrill Lynch's Chief Market strategist Mark Matthews are very bullish on Pakistan. Matthews has called Pakistan a "safe haven" for investors as recently as Jan 6, 2008 in an interview with CNBC.
The number of cellular subscribers in Pakistan has crossed 76m in Dec, 2007, from 500,000 in 2004. According to Business Recorder, Pakistan's financial daily, most forecasters believe that the upward trend will continue in the next 5 years because of the huge market potential, particularly in the rural areas where the build-out has yet to happen. Opreators such as Wateen (with Motorola) are planning a large Wimax roll-out to improve voice and high bandwidth data access across the country. The biggest mobile operators in Pakistan include Mobilink with 30m subscribers, Ufone with 16m, Telenor with 14m, Warid with 13m and Paktel with 1m.
It must be noted that FDI is different from stock market investments. FDI money goes to build factories, infrastructure and facilities rather than the purchase of financial assets such as stocks and bonds by mutual funds.
According to Pakistan's Daily Times, Pakistan’ telecom boom has created more than 300,000 jobs in the telecom sector. This has resulted in huge demand for professional and capable telecom workforce that can expertly meet the new age requirements of these positions. Creative public private partnerships are being established to meet this demand.
Thanks to Pakistanis' rising incomes, which have more than doubled to over US$900 per year in the last seven years, and increased competition, the teledensity rate is expected to go over 50 percent in the next couple of years, according to officials and analysts. Opportunities such as these are fueling the continuing growth in the middle class which further enhances the ongoing consumer boom. By various estimates, the Pakistani middle class has now grown to over 30m people, about 20% of the total population. The size of this middle class makes Pakistan an attractive opportunity for investors, in spite of the continuing political uncertainty with the approaching elections in February, 2008. Analysts such as Merrill Lynch's Chief Market strategist Mark Matthews are very bullish on Pakistan. Matthews has called Pakistan a "safe haven" for investors as recently as Jan 6, 2008 in an interview with CNBC.
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The number of mobile customers in Pakistan grew to 123.60 million in November last year, up from 121.60 million in October 2012, while mobile teledensity inched up to 69.8 percent fro 68.8 percent, according to figures from the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA). Mobilink led the market with 36.60 million subscribers, up from 36.39 million a month earlier, followed by Telenor which had 30.81 million subscribers, compared with 30.43 million in October. Ufone's subscriber base grew to 24.31 million from 24.07 million, and Zong ended the month with 18.93 million customers, up from 17.95 million in October. Warid had 12.94 million subscribers in November compared with 12.76 million in the prior month.
http://www.telecompaper.com/news/pakistans-mobile-base-reaches-12360-mln-in-november--920582
Norwegian telecom group Telenor will invest $1.7 billion in Pakistan after acquiring a 3G spectrum, reports Propakistani. The massive investment, announced by Telenor CEO Jon Fredrik Baksaas at a recent meeting with members of the Pakistan media, should have a large impact on the country; Baksass predicts that it will increase internet penetration and, by extension, the country’s GDP.
This new investment should be a boon especially for rural people who may not have internet access, as $700 million of it is apparently earmarked for spreading 3G networks across the country. Baksaas reportedly said that he expects this rollout to have a greater impact on rural residents than urban residents.
This is not Telenor’s first foray into Pakistan, the company has already invested more than $2 billion there. That shouldn’t come as a large surprise given that the company is one of Pakistan’s largest telecom operators, with more than 30 million subscribers in the country
http://www.techinasia.com/telenor-invest-1-billion-pakistan-3g/
Pakistan has crossed a historical milestone. Elections were held on time, and for the first time in its 66-year history, a democratically elected government completed its term and handed over power to a new one. At the same time, the elections recorded a voter turnout unprecedented in recent years.
Much of this renewed political interest has been driven by Pakistan’s telecommunications revolution. Over 50 million voters verified their polling stations through their mobile phones and the elections were tweeted, blogged, and plastered across Facebook. In fact, the way I see it, the elections presented a major victory not only for Pakistan, but also placed a massive feather in the collective caps of telecom companies.
The Information Communication Technology (ICT) industry in Pakistan has registered a prolific boom in the last few years. With affordable pricing and 122 million connections showing mobile penetration at an all-time high, Pakistanis are amongst the highest SMS users in the world – the average Pakistani sends up to 178 text messages in a month.
And recent months have seen the launch of mobile financial services by various players, with transactions worth Rs3.76 billion via online banking already taken place.
Internet and broadband penetration is at a similar peak. According to World Bank statistics, by July 2012, Pakistan internet users showed a double-digit growth in the past five years and the Internet Service Providers Association of Pakistan (Ispak) estimates that internet users have reached 25 million thanks to broadband and mobile phone operators.
Moreover, thanks to large organisations such as PTCL and Wateen Telecom, over 250 towns and cities across the country are now connected through an extensive fibre optic network.
Universal Services Fund
The government also intends to use approximately $700 million available with the Universal Services Fund (USF) to further develop the infrastructure and network that has already been put in place. The USF’s aim to “improve the working of the Universal Services Fund (USF) and utilise its resources to bridge the rural-urban digital divide and establish WiFi hotspots” is certainly a welcome one.
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Smart grids
The auction of licences itself will give an impetus to the economy and provide the government with FDI. However, the regulatory body will need to rely on more than just consumer uptake in order to achieve the scale necessary for sustaining growth. This means formulating policies that encourage the uptake of data services by vertical industries, for example solutions for smart grids.
Indeed, smart grids should be a top priority for the new government – not only will they enable growth and scalability within the ICT sector, they will also provide significant value for the power and energy sectors.
Currently, there are several pilot projects under way using cellular technology, however, according to industry leaders, cellular solutions for smart grids are not scalable.
Moreover, utility companies require constant data streams on their networks for telemetry, oscillography, usage and meta-data. Data usage is rapidly increasing and demand is likely to increase once 3G services are introduced.
Telecom operators, on whom electricity distribution companies currently rely, will likely be in a challenging position in the next few years as demand on their networks grows for ambient video and other data-heavy services.
http://tribune.com.pk/story/570485/the-future-of-ict-in-pakistan/
The country’s total mobile phone subscriptions reached an all-time high of 137.68 million at the end of April 2014, corresponding to a cellular mobile teledensity of 75.6% for the first time, according to the latest data released by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA).
The PTA statistics revealed that each of the given cellular mobile operators (CMOs) were able to increase their subscriber base – collectively selling 1.2 million new connections in April 2014.
Telenor Pakistan and China Mobile (Zong) were once again the highest contributors to the growth of country’s mobile phone subscribers.
Telenor Pakistan sold 665,591 new connections during the month under review, taking its overall subscriber base to 35.87 million. The Pakistani arm of the Oslo-based cellular giant holds 26% share in the country’s cellular subscriber base, only two percentage points behind market leader Mobilink.
Mobilink maintained the top place, growing its subscriptions to 38.3 million after adding 145,941 new subscriptions to its network. Its share in the cellular segment is 28% as of April, 2014, the data revealed.
Zong, the Pakistani subsidiary of China Mobile, also continued its positive growth by selling 387,527 new connections in April and finished at number three with 25.98 million subscriptions. It now accounts for 19% of the country’s telecom subscriptions – just one percentage point above Ufone that slipped to number four with a market share of 18% or 24.6 million subscribers at the end of April, 2014. It sold only 2,435 new connections during the review period.
Warid Telecom, the smallest player in terms of subscriber base, sold 11,831 new connections and finished with a market share of 9% or 12.95 million subscriptions, according to the latest statistics.
http://tribune.com.pk/story/715949/breaking-records-cell-phone-subscriptions-soar-to-all-time-high/