The News, By Azfar-ul-Ashfaque
10/28/2005
http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews/oct2005-dai...05/metro/k1.htm
KARACHI: The cell phone population of the country would cross 30 million mark within the next three years, as during the current year the number of cell phone users has already surpassed 15 million.
Officials in the Pakistan Telecom Authority (PTA) said that due to tremendous growth in the country’s cell phone population, they believed that the number of mobile phone users would be doubled within the next three years.
In 2004, the number of cell phone users in the country was 5.022 million. Till date it
has crossed 15 million, which reflects that over 10 million new cell phone connections
have been sold in all the four provinces.
The officials said that the growth rate is much above the telecom regulator’s as well as the government’s expectation, which had estimated an addition of mere three million new users during the year 2005.
At present six mobile phone companies - Mobilink, U-fone, Paktel, Instaphone, Warid and Telenor - are operating in the country. According to official data, in the first half of 2005, Mobilink led the market share with 7.469 million subscribers, while 2.579 million people use U-Fone. Other operators including Paktel users were 924,486, Instaphone had a subscribers’ base of 454,147, Telenor had sold out 835,727 connections and Warid users were 508,655 during the same period.
While, a sizeable increase is being witnessed in the cell phone4population, the authorities are considering many options to cater the increasing demand.
A PTA official said that the rapid telecom sector growth had forced the telecom regulator to introduce eight-digit number as the present seven digits are not sufficient to cater to the growth.
He ruled out issuance of new licence to any new company and said that the government provided the existing operators with a level playing field so that they could reinforce their infrastructure in the country. "The market is much broad and the existing operators can attract a good number of subscribers by introducing lucrative packages and improvement of service," he said.
He, however, conceded that the majority of the cell phone users are based in urban localities and the number is much less in the country’s rural areas.
The government has already estimated over $two billion investment by the end of the current year in the telecom sector. "The foreign investment particularly in the telecom sector has created and will create more avenues for employment, which will definitely lead towards prosperity," the official added.
