Industry Analysis: Better served Data Rates Increases the Number of Subscribers for the Telecom Industry

For several years the tech world is evolving to suffice the needs for end user requirements and briefly before such advents one would rarely use any mobile network due to limited and expensive packages. In short Tower PC/laptops were used for Skype with additional DSL connection transferring files or images but now they can perform the similar with their handsets using network data.  Similarly the Telecommunication Industry in Pakistan is also maintaining and improving a good influx of the subscribers. But the new laws governing the issuance of the SIM cards also known as the Biometric Verification may have reduced the subscribers. The BVS may sound a show stopper but in reality it has cleared the profits for the Operators and increased awareness among the users. Now the data consumed is actually used by bona fide citizens or registered foreigners in Pakistan.  Such subscriber awareness in terms of utilizing better data rates in their normal life have enabled them to understand the capabilities that can be supported by the Latest technologies that the Operators are acquiring. Such altogether attention by the users and the operators, which will mature further with time, has regained the lost numbers of subscribers for the 3G/4G operators. The number that fell due to the strict law is now rising with no impediment as now all the users are registered and are mostly focused to their serving operators.  The Technology will grow continuously to reach new heights enabling the users to manage their activities with their improved data usage.

Latest report shows the Pakistan’s total broadband subscribers. Courtesy of http://www.pta.gov.pk/ with annual report of July 2014 to June 2015.

Statistics for one month increase is under observation according to the PTA’s Analysis.

• The number of cellular subscriber increased 2.1% from 116.4 Million to 118.9 Million
• The number of 3G & 4G mobile subscribers reached 15.7 million, and this increase in subscriber is due to the increase in data users.
• The number of broadband connections increased 6.8 % to 18.9 million from 17.7 million, and this increase in connection is due to the rollout improved network architecture providing higher data rates for high speed mobile terminals over, 3G & 4G, DSL and other networks.
• The cellular mobile operators’ (COMs). Over-all user base, which decreased by 7.8 % to 15 million subscribers in August 2015; amid the biometric verification drive, also shows sign of recovery (show the value of increase).
• The cellular Teledensity decreased from 79.8% in June 2014 to 62.9 %. In August 2015, though, with the Bio Metric verification we can observe an increase of 2.7% as updated.

Market Share:

Here is the chart for four (4) Pakistani 3G UMTS Operators.

		SUBSCRIBERS
Operators	Technology	Jul-15	Aug-15
CMPak Zong	3G	3,094,684	3,452,634
Mobilink	3G	3,956,653	4,031,096
Telenor	3G	4,695,904	5,091,114
Ufone	3G	2,613,066	2,881,504

PTA 5 operator Stats and Market Shares:

According to the PTA’s statistics, here are the details for 5 Pakistani 3G/4G operators. Namely Telenor, Ufone, Mobilink, Warid and Zong by August 2015.

• Mobilink: With 33.9 million at the end of July Mobilink surpassed by 1.89 % and reached at 34.6 million at the end of August.
• Telenor: With 32 million at the end of July Telenor surpassed by 1.84 % and reached at 32.7 million at the end of August.
• Zong: With 22.4 million at the end of July, Zong increased by 2.9 % and reached at 23 million at the end of August.
• Ufone: With 17 million at the end of July, Ufone increased by 2.2 % and reached at 18.2 million at the end of August.
• Warid: With 9.9 million at the end of July, Warid increased 2 % and reached at 10.1 million at the end of August.

The growth of broadband subscriber gives positive impact on Pakistan’s Telecommunication industry in the world. If number of subscriber increases with the same rate as it is increasing i.e. 1.85% monthly since Jun 2015, there is a chance for Pakistan’s telecommunication industry to reach a 140M users by May 2016. Because in the year of 2015, the BVS was introduced which looks like it affected the subscriber volume. But in reality it has cleared the picture for the operators with real and faithful subscribers, who actually use the network while being registered to their old operators. There were many users with more than 5 SIM cards but they only used maximum three connections. The two extra or in many cases more than two were just occupied and would not be used. So by BVS these extra subscribers have mostly been filtered out to view the actual users actively on the network. This also improved the available MSISDN Pool for each operator. Since 3G is available and it is actively used, we can observe a good rise in the subscribers.

Given graph plotted by the PTA’s statistical annual report. It’s showing the increase in subscribers annually 2003-2004 to 2013-2014 and a fall in 2014-2015.

 

A Monthly Forecast Towards 140 Million Subscribers

If the growth of subscribers continues with the same rate then we are expecting to reach the 140Million users in May 2016. The following graph shows a linear rise, from Oct-15 to May-16 with green triangles, which is only for forecasting purposes that we have deduced from the past few months stats taking help from the PTA’s Official website . Please continue to view our monthly magazine and we can update the change in rise and update you accordingly.