Mobile users post slight growth in Q1 2009
The growth in cellular phone subscribers remained sluggish amidst aggressive marketing efforts of the operators, showing addition of only 1.561 million connections in the last three months.
According to the latest subscriber’s data updated by Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), the cellular phone users’ base widened to 95.90 million by the end of the first quarter of the current fiscal year with comparatively slow pace and intensifying war among the operators. The subscribers rose by a mere 0.13 percent (0.125 million) in September; 0.25 percent (0.236 million) in August 2009 and 1.28 percent (1.2 million) in July.
The cellular teledensity has now reached 58.6 percent.
Mobilink remained the leader operator with a market share of 31.3 percent and 30.046 million subscribers. Telenor retained its second position with total subscribers standing at 21.7 million by the end of September followed by Ufone having market of 19.10 million connections. Zong is expanding its user’s market with 6.629 million users.
In Jul-Sep, the mobile phone operators have continued the war to grab the market share by introducing different packages on the purchase and reactivation of the SIM.
Day and night time call packages have been offered to the customers while the number of SMS bundles has also enhanced particularly in the Ramadan.
The growth in subscribers remained less than one percent in August and September.
The teledensity of cellular phone subscribers has also posted less than one percent growth. It increased to 58.60 percent from 58.50 percent, showing growth of a paltry 0.17 percent. Telecom analysts forecast noticeable contraction in the overall subscribers’ base of the country as the telecom watchdog has initiated a new Information system to rectify user’s data and to block unregistered SIMs. So far over 12 million SIM have been blocked across the country.
Wireless Local Loop: The growth in Wireless Local Loop (WLL) also witnessed slight improvement in the closing quarter of the current fiscal year, as only 69,050 connections were added.
The wireless users grew sharply in July with the increase of 35,041 connections. However, its sales remained sluggish in August and September with only 34,009 users growing. Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) wireless users’ base stood at the highest level with 1.3 million. Telecard and WorldCall enhanced their subscribers to 0.635 million and 0.567 million by the end of July 2009, PTA data said.
via DailyTimes
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