Cellular Subscribers' Stats for Year 2008-2009

Cellular phone companies added total of 6.322 million subscribers in 2008-09, as per latest stats shared by Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) reported.

The total number of cellular subscribers reached 94.342 million in the country while teledensity has touched 58.20, as per stats.

For rest of details, following graphs will explain the whole situation

Net_Addition_Cellular_Subscribers_2008_2009

As evident from graph, Telenor acquired most subscribers followed by Zong – While Mobilink saw huge churn – primarily due to in-active/un-registered users’ clean up.

Cellular_Subscribers_June_2009_Pakistan

Mobilink stands first, with plenty of margin – However we saw a change in second slot where Telenor out shined Ufone and stood second in total number of subscribers.

Cellular_Market_Share_June_2009_Pakistan

Daily Times writes about the ups and downs in cellular market in following manner

The market saw contraction of base twice in November and December 2008 with 0.1 and 0.6 percent, respectively in the first half of closing fiscal year. In this period, the telecom watchdog has blocked more than 5 million users on the non-registration and unauthorised SIMs (Subscriber Identity Module). In the second half, PTA along with mobile phone operators, has introduced a SIM verification system with National Database Registration Authority (NADRA) which was also a challenge for the market. Almost all cellular phone companies have reduced their calling rates two to four times in the year, as a result of a fierce price war going in the sector.

Nonetheless the cellular operators launched various sales campaign in rural and urban cities, offering various call and SMS packages which helped the recovery of subscribers. Expert believes that a large number of customers have started using more than one connections of different companies in order to get maximum benefits of offered service packages.

According to an estimate, the country has not more than 60 million active subscribers in different cities while the rest of subscribers use double connections. The free call minutes packages offered by various cellular phone operators on the unused SIMs is an evident strategy to retain active users on the networks.

Among five players of the cellular market, an average operator has added 1.26 million connections. However, Telenor was the star performer with the addition of 2.767 million subscribers to its 20.893 million base, PTA data said.

The PTA data says by June 2009, Mobilink was leading the market share with 29.136 million subscribers. Ufone’s users stand at 20 million in the same fiscal year. They also believe that cellular phone market has been saturated particularly in big cities, however, companies are now focusing on Value Added Services (VAS) to increase their revenue earning from existing users.

Tech and telecom reporter for over 15 years


  • can u also provide us with the grafh showing most ported out nos. from an operator(donor) to n operator receiving nos. (recepient)

  • Now that 2G has reached saturation in pakistan, the cellular operators need to upgrade to 3G to offer exciting video applications which will increase ARPU. Otherwise, ARPUs and revenues will continue to fall if minutes and SMSs are being offered for free.

  • I’ll agree. We need to have port out data. Plus if my memory serves me correct, didn’t Mobilink go down to 28 million. If yes then they have not only retained leading market share but also gained on it.


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