China Mobile is planning to invest $300 million in Pakistan which is one of the largest investments made by any telecom operator in our country for this current year.

This was unveiled by the Chairman of China Mobile Corporation, Mr. Wang Jianzhou.

As ZONG has already invested $1.66 billion in Pakistan and played an important role in generating over 40,000 indirect and 1,700 direct jobs in the country. The China Mobile is likely to invest more in the country in the coming years as the company has laid out more future investment plans.

This investment by China Mobile is also one of the largest investments made by any Chinese company in Pakistan.

ZONG has established more than 5000 cell sites in Pakistan and it stands third in terms of number of base stations which is positive sign of rapid growth.

The first ever business enterprise of China Mobile out side China is ZONG, which has attracted only the global cellular field but also the international investment houses and finance experts. This largest investment by China Mobile can be considered as an ambassador of friendship between China and Pakistan.

China Mobile will continue to invest in the construction of transmission facilities, GSM networks, and support systems and for the development of new businesses and technologies. China Mobile pursues continuous innovation in the provision of services, business, technology and management and has sustained a leadership position in the telecom industry.

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Pakistan is now in the list of fastest telecom growth countries. Calls rates are very low in Pakistan and this is one of many factors of this development. Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has released Mobile Service Providers statistics as on December 2009. There are 97,579,940 (97.6 Million) Mobile users with Mobile Density of 59.60% in Pakistan according to the report (Dec 09).

GSM service pioneer Mobilink stands first with 30,800,354 subscribers. Telenor on second with user base of 22,500,789 and Warid (18,847,315), Ufone (18,510,175), and ZONG (6,920,234) on 3rd, 4th, and 5th respectively. Overall all companies showed positive trend except Ufone whose user base declined in 2009 last quarter.

The growth rate is recorded 0.93% as compared to Nov 09, 0.83%.

Source: Pakistan Telecommunication Authority

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According to the annual report of the PTA, the new entrant Zong led the market in terms of growth in the year 2008-09. The report staggered a 220 percent growth in revenue and this is the highest in the telecommunication industry.

ZONG growth of 220% was followed by Ufone 46%. The contribution of ZONG was 30 billion which 20% of the total increase in its revenue. This achievement is remarkable for a new entrant in the market.2007-2008 total revenue was PKR 182,122 billion compared to the year 2008-2009 which generated revenue of 212,423 billion to the telecom industry. ZONG premiered in the market in April 2008 and within a short period of time; it has become a force to reckon with in the market today. This is due to the aggressive increase in subscriber base and achievements in revenue. Whereas ZONG contributes 20% to industrial revenue old players like Mobilink and Warid contributed 11% and 8% respectively. This shows that the company contributes much to the industrial revenue and for the short time it has been there it has contributed more than the other companies in the industry.

The report also alludes that it is not about the length of time that a company has been functioning. This is because clients look for the good offers, reasonable tariffs and also the affordable tariffs.

The growth of this Chinese company shows how the telecom sector pays many dividends in short time due to its innovation. This growth is contributed by the new technologies.

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According to the latest reports by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, the country has touched the count of mobile phone users to 96.7 million in November 2009.

With these 96.7 million mobile phone subscribers, the teledensity has reached 59.03 percent. And with the increased growth rate of 0.83 percent especially owing to the best in the last half year of 2009, the total amount of the mobile phone subscriptions in Pakistan stood at 96,709,585 with net addition of 790,856 subscribers in the month of November 2009.

Source: Pakistan Telecommunication Authority

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Out of the top four cellular players Ufone has been the biggest impetus behind the Cellular industry’s 17% growth as declared by PTA in its annual report for the year 2008-2009. Ufone’s is at the top with an astounding revenue growth of 46% during past year.

The report states that cellular telecom sector in Pakistan maintained a positive growth rate for the year 2008-09 despite a cut throat tariff and call packages competition and sluggish economic conditions in the country.

A recently released annual report PTA for the year 2008-2009 has shown growth of 17% in revenue for the cellular industry overall reflecting that the industry is involved in a healthy competition and its strategy to increase customer base as well as revenues through value added services and call minutes has worked so far.

Amongst the top four players, Ufone led with 46% increase in revenue, Mobilink the largest cellular operator in the country in terms of declared customer base has increased its net revenue by 4%over the same period, Telenor also performed well with 14% increase and Warid telecom fared with 9% increase in revenue. The total revenue of the industry saw a growth from Rupees 182.122 billion in the year 2007-2008 to Rupees 212.423 billion in the year 2008-2009.

But despite these increases in revenue the most of the operators are showing losses as these have to invest further in a competitive market. Ufone however has shown a profit of Rs 1.7 billion despite that fact it has further invested USD 245 million in the last year to expand and improve its network. PTA attributes this to Ufone’s robust and prudent handling of its finances.

PTA also has noted that Average Revenue Per User has also decreased over the year as the customer base has expanded into the lower income segment that used voice telephony more instead of value added services. Mobilink and Ufone here again have shown the way with leading the industry by getting better revenue as compared to the rest of the industry from data services.

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Mobilink started its operations in Pakistan in 1993 and is pioneer of GSM Service in Pakistan. Today, we have 6 Mobile operators; five of them are GSM Service Provider i.e. Mobilink, Telenor, Ufone, Warid, Zong and one AIMs Operator, Instaphone which is going to be unearthed very soon.  For the last few years, the competition between the Mobile Operators has increased and they are spending millions of rupees per annum on advertising. This competition also started a price war and now we can see, each of the operators is providing services on lower charges and can go to lowest possible as well.

Mobilink was considered as expensive one a while ago but where there is competition, company has to follow the market trend to survive in the market. They have decreased their voice rates as well as SMS in recent years. Mobilink is on the Top so far with over 29 Million users. Ufone was the seconds GSM Service Provider in Pakistan but Telenor has left it behind in terms of Customer base. Ufone and Telenor have a customer base of 20 and 21 million + subscribers respectively. Zong is the latest entrant in Mobile Telecom in Pakistan and established its roots very fast. Currently, it has a user base of over 6 million. Instaphone stands on 11,000+ users and the number is decreasing day by day. Find below the chart with Mobile Operators users from year 2005-2009. The total number of mobile users as on July 2009 is 95,547,285.

Let’s just have a look at the following graph from 2005 to 2009 of these Mobile Operators. Ufone, Telenor, Zong, and Warid graph line shows a positive trend till 2009 whereas; Mobilink graph shows a decrease in customers in year 2008 because of its high prices for Voice and SMS.  Instaphone is taking its last breaths and soon will be died or acquired by another company.

The estimated population of Pakistan in July, 2009 is 174,579,000 and the mobile density is 58.5%. Let’s have a look at the increase in mobile density in last 5 years.

Some important decisions are to be made by PTA in coming year. This is also expected that only 4 Mobile Companies will be staying in the country. There are also talks about Telenor Zong Merger. Lets see what happens.

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