Telecom industry: many milestones ahead

Telecom operators in Pakistan may well be running in losses; the cellular subscriber market may well have reached the saturation points, but nothing stopped the telecom firms throw in a wide range of product offerings and different packages in the year to date.
In the face of slower mobile subscription growth, the industry managed to add nearly 4 million new mobile users in the cellular network, bringing total industrys subscribers base to around 98 million users during the first eleven months of current fiscal year.
The market leaders Mobilink and Telenor have led the overall growth in respective order. The giant Mobilink retained its market leader status with a market share of 33 percent, closely followed by Telenor and Ufone with 24 and 20 percent market share, respectively.
On the flip side, demand for wireless local loop service remained weak, on the back of availability of mobile services at low cost.
Therefore, telecom operators managed to sell just 0.16 million connection during first eleven months of current fiscal year. If growth in this segment continues at snails pace, it is quite likely that it would throw small operators out of the business very soon.
However, in growth terms, broadband segment topped the list, as the industry sold a little more than 0.25 million subscriptions in the last six months, taking the total subscribers base to around 0.8 million users in April.
Rising appetite for broadband technology has ranked Pakistan as the worlds tenth fastest growing market.
In the DSL segment, the country is ranked as the second fastest growing economy in South and East Asia; according to a fourth quarter 2009 report by Point Topic - a UK-based broadband statistics provider.
Though, future demand for broadband internet seems promising, high subscription charges and lack of availability of personal computers would keep demand growth in check.
At present, just 9.8 percent of Pakistani households own a personal computer, a number that needs to grow by leaps and bound for broadband to make its mark.
However, as government is moving forward with the plan to roll out 3G licenses, users might see far more new products and packages next year.