One in every three Pakistani is mobile

Cool we are "progressing" in the country where clean water is a problem , electricity black outs are a common thing we are the record holders of having 33 % mobile phone which soon will shoot up to 50 % in the coming years ( source Cellular News )

Some details of the Pakistan cellular market are as follows

Mobilink ( Orascom Egypt ) with a customer base of 25 million is lossing market share and in the first quarter lost 2.1 % of the market share with average customer decline of 3.1 % per month . all I have to say is Aur Sunao ( what else is new ) given their cost structure of charging Air Time fees , they are the most expensive of the operators . Still with their Blackberry service and charming Jazz ads Mobilink is still ahead of the game

Ufone the PTCL / Etisalat /Pak overnment owned is at numebr 2 with 20.9 % of the market and gained market share for the first time in 5 quarters . they are also focusing Corporate customer through email packages , no new offerings are coming from them except their pre pay packages

Warid ( Abu Dhabi Group ) had been a constant winner ( The son of the owner just away , may Allah have mercy on his soul ) but in the first quarter Telenor overtook it to become the thrid largest operator but the difference is only of 0.2% of the market and 114000 customers . Warid is nowadays more concerend with their post paid packages and going for corporate customers , they recently conveinced my boss to shift everyone of us to Warid . The service had been good but needs more innovation like EDGE or 3G maybe after launch of WiMAX by their sister concern Wateen , Warid may bring something new .

Telenor with its billion dollar investment is booming with new technologies first it was EDGE , then Telenor Akhbar ( news paper ) and now Telenor mobile TV in association with ROKTV UK , Telenor fell behind Warid in market share terms in Q3 2005 after only three months of operation and remained behind for the next year and a half - until last month, when it finally overtook Warid for third place in the market. With just 0.2pp of market share and 114k customers separating them, however, the battle will undoubtedly remain closely fought.

Paktel / China Mobile the Houdini of Pakistan's mobile industry is in the distant fifth place with just over 1m customers at the end of March, having lost almost 0.3m connections in the quarter.


So the outlook in the industry is great Pakistanis love their cellphones and some like me also carry multiple phones for different uses , competition is increasing which is bringing call rates lower and lower for the benefit for the consumers now calling China / USA / UK costs same as calling cell phone next door . Cell phones has played an important part in the economic growth of the country making communication effective and cheap with easy access to markets and more infomration for the trading community

hoping for the best and looking out for new offerings

Farhan