As the growth returns and total subscribers reach 93 million plus change, one trend has emerged: the main battle for subscriber acquisition is between Mobilink and Telenor.
As you can see in the chart above, in the month of May, Mobilink gained more than 430K subscribers (or SIMs) and Telenor added 374K. As of May end Mobilink holds about 30.9% of the total market. It will be interesting to see the shift for the rest of this year.
Cellphone operators have finally decided to approach the finance ministry to seek withdrawal of the recently imposed 20 paisa tax per SMS, which will hinder growth of the industry.
It is learnt that cellular phone operators have started evolving a strategy and are preparing to make a presentation to the finance ministry in this regard. Before going to the ministry, top officials of cellular phone companies will separately meet with each other in a couple of days to make their case strong. Officers of one of the operators are also considering to approach the Competition Commission, as, according to them, the government has offered extra support to one of the companies at the cost of the whole industry.
The government, in the federal budget for 2009-10, has levied 20 paisa tax per SMS, which is in addition to the rate specified for the telecommunication sector. At present, all mobile phone companies except one are offering bulk SMS packages, which are seen greatly favourable for consumers. However, the new levy will reduce revenues of operators, and rates charging process will also become complex as most of the operators are offering unlimited SMS at a fixed rate.
According to data collected from the industry, out of 90 million registered cellular phone customers, over 45 million use the SMS service, each sending an average of seven SMS daily. Daily SMS traffic in the country is estimated at around 315 million and monthly traffic at around one billion.
The Pakistani market is very responsive to SMS-based packages. There has been tremendous growth in SMS usage, estimated at 30 per cent in recent years.
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We are already late as 3G has been introduced in the rest of the world, including a few of our neighbours including India. How can we look forward to 3G services in Pakistan when the basic data service “SMS” is being taxed more than its cost? Government should have discussed such a decision with PTA before announcing it in the Budget 2009. PTA should take a strong stand on this motion as this will hinder growth in the Telecom industry of Pakistan.
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