2015 Proves A Valuable Year for ICT Sector of Pakistan

2015 has been a solid year for the IT and telecom industry of Pakistan as the sector is in far better place now than it was a few years ago.  One of the reason for Pakistan being behind other nations on the ICT front was the absence of  an updated Telecom Policy. So we can say that finalization of new Policy is the biggest achievement of the MoITT this year.

2015 Proves A Valuable Year for ICT Sector of Pakistan

Also Read: Telecom Policy 2015 Aims to Transform Pakistan into an Economically Vibrant Country by 2025

The overall state of the telecom industry has also been quite positive. According to the annual report “State of the Economy” published by State Bank of Pakistan, Mobile phone companies witnessed a solid growth of 69 percent year-on-year (YoY) for data revenues during Jul-Dec 2015. The post auction strategies of telecom operators have played a major role in this growth as approximately one million 3G/4G/LTE subscriptions are being added every month.

Smartphone penetration also increased in the year 2015, many international brands like Xiaomi, iNew, Infinix and iPhone were officially launched in the entered local market. As of July 2015 there were around 14.6 million 3G/4G smartphone users and by December 2016 the smartphone users will reach 40 million. Whereas, the 3G and 4G subscribers also reached 20.6 million by November this year.

Also Read: Broadband Subscribers Crosses 23.6 Million Mark in Pakistan

 Many people still think that IT and Telecom sector of Pakistan is ill-fated because of the lower ICT rankings that we see. We need to understand that these lower rankings are due to lack of information flowing to the rating agencies and not the actual state of the sector. Because the developments in ICT industry that are in progress are a vibrant part of our economy.  Now that Telecom Policy and Cybercrime bill have been drafted and internet taxation have been lowered down, we can expect that year 2016 will bring greater achievements for our industry.