Mobilink plans to invest $250 million by December

Mobilink, country's leading cellular telephone company, is bracing up to maintain its edge in the market with plans for expansion and new products.
This was the upshot of briefing by Zouhair A. Khaliq, president and CEO of Mobilink in Pakistan, held at the head office for a select group of reporters on Monday.
According to him, the company has plans to invest $ 250 million by December and hope to enhance their clientele and coverage to new cities in the country.
He said: "We expect the market to grow from the existing 3.4 million subscribers to 10-12 million during the next 3 to 5 years."
Mobilink's service is available in 250 cities, which would enhance to 400 cities by year's end.
He said the private sector owns more than 80 percent of the market share, which would become even bigger after expansion plans are fully implemented. Mobilink alone has invested $ 520 million till December 2003, and plans another $ 250 million investment during the current calendar year.
Khaliq said Mobilink's market share is almost 60 percent with 2.3 million subscribers as of December 2003. He said the company expects a total subscription base of 4 million by the end of 2004, surpassing PTCL's clientele.
Giving an overview of the ambitious expansion plans, he said the main challenge was to address the issues of system congestion.
This, he said, has been tackled by the installation of state-of-the-art equipment in rapidly expanding cell sites (increased from 350 to 900) and switches (from 4 to 9) between June and December 2003.
He said the company would set up 1000 additional cell sites during 2004 to improve the quality of its services, along with the setting up of modern call centres in Lahore and Karachi.
He was confident to continue their leadership, despite the induction of the two new service providers. The new companies, he estimated, would have to invest about $1 billion each to compete in the market. The new companies would have to face a tough time, he said.
Mobilink is installing modern services, like missed call alerts, bill payments through ATMs, electronic recharging of accounts, high speed data services and e-mails.
The proposed expansion and new products would make Mobilink a nation-wide network, operating from Karachi to Peshawar. After the system expansion, he said, every 50th Pakistani would be a Mobilink user.
Khaliq also claimed its superiority on the basis of a large international roaming facility in 100 countries around the world.
He agreed with a questioner that the tax on new connection of Rs 2000 was high and should be reduced.
The cellular companies have been pressing the government but it seems the demand for revenues is the hurdle. He was certain, in case of reduction in tax, the demand would go up drastically.