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KARACHI: The rising trend of
utility of mobile phone
services in metros coupled
with constant increase of
subscribers in rural areas have
widened the subscribers base of cellular sector to 119.860
million with addition of 10.966
connections in 11 months of
2011-12. According to the statistics of
Pakistan Telecommunication
Authority (PTA), the number
of new connections increased
on monthly average of 0.99
million in July to May 2012 period. The overall teledensity of
cellular phone users reached
68.60 percent by the end of
third quarter of 2011-12. It
means that every 68 persons
out of 100 have mobile phone connections in Pakistan. The officials of
the cellular
phone companies said the
subscribers' growth was
witnessed in urban and rural
areas in different age groups
and income classes. They said that the sale of
cellular phone connections is
on the rise in the metros
despite the fact that big cities
are considered as saturated
with users having multiple SIMs of different operators. However, they added, the
growth has been recorded
throughout the last financial
year as a big segment of
school-going children are
purchasing mobile phone SIMs for communication and
entertainment purposes. In urban areas, customers at
large are carrying multiple
SIMs of different networks at
the same time for availing on-
net calls and SMS bundles
offered by different mobile companies. The handsets
having dual or multiple SIMs
functions have given impetus
to the trend of using multiple
services of different operators
by the users. On the other hand, the
growing cellular phone
network of different
operators including their
technical infrastructure and
sales channels have boosted the adoption of cellular phone
services in small cities and
villages. The competition among the
cellular phones is intensifying
while introducing new
services and free airtime to
customers in the past nine
months, which have increased the usage of services against
low cost. Mobilink is leading the market
with 36.04 million subscribers.
It is followed by Telenor and
Ufone with 29.89 million and
23.50 million, respectively.
Zong and Warid stood at 16.56 million and 13.7 million
subscribers' base, respectively. Officials of the cellular phone
companies feared of blocking
millions of SIMs if the new
regulation will be
implemented on overall
subscribers' base as there are scores of individuals having
many SIMs registered on their
Computerised National
Identity Cards. Recently, PTA has set the limit
over the purchase of
subscription by one individual
from 50 SIMs to five SIMs in
its amended Subscribers
Antecedents Verification Regulations. According to the new rule, an
individual can get subscription
of five SIMs – prepaid or
postpaid—on one CNIC from
different cellular phone
companies or one company. Previously an individual could
purchase 10 SIMs of one
subscriber, that is, 50 for five
different cellular phone
companies in total...
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