LAHORE - The cellular companies have made a total investment of around $452 million in telecom sector during fiscal year 2012-13 compared to $240.3 million of the last fiscal year despite the fact that average revenue per user (ARPU) of Pakistan’s telecom sector declined to Rs211 per month in FY13 from Rs217 of the same period last year due to tough competition and further addition of low income users.
Statistics show that despite a slight decline in ARPU, revenue of telecom sector grew by 7 per cent and reached all-time high of Rs440 billion in FY13.
Industry sources said that government is seriously relying on this sector to generate investment activities in the country while the cellular companies are also preparing for the upcoming next generation license auction by investing in their network infrastructure. According to data, the tele-density of Pakistan reached 75.2 per cent in FY13 compared to 71.7 per cent in FY12. Cellular segment remained the major contributor by covering 71.7 per cent of the population followed by Wireless Local Loop (WLL) and Fixed Local Loop (FLL) with 1.9 per cent and 1.7 per cent, respectively.
Cellular subscribers have attained a level of 127.8 million in FY13 versus 120.2 million in FY12, up 6.7 per cent. Local loop sector has performed well as total tele-density of both FLL and WLL services combined reached at 3.6 per cent in FY13. The local loop segment showed a growth of 8.7 per cent and reached 6.4 million subscribers. PTCL holds 95 per cent share in FLL subscriber base and 37 per cent in WLL segment. Data shows that among five cellular operators in the country, the youngest operator China Mobile led all others by attracting 4.3 million new subscribers; Warid remained last by losing 0.79 million subscribers during FY13. Mobilink (Vimpelcom) remained at the top in cellular segment with the market share of 29.1 per cent followed by Telenor 25.2 per cent and Ufone (Etisalat) 19.2 per cent in FY13.
A telecom industry expert Tahir Saeed observed that despite low penetration ratio of 1.5 per cent, broadband subscriptions grew by 30 per cent in FY13. The subscriber-base increased by more than half a million users from 2.1 million to 2.7 million in last fiscal year. DSL (Digital subscriber line) segment led with 1.1 million subscribers followed closely by EvDo (Evolution data optimized) at 1.0 million with almost two-fold increase in subscribers in FY13. PTCL remained the market leader in broadband segment with largest market share of 70.9 per cent; second largest player was Wateen (10.3 per cent) followed by Worldcall (6.6 per cent).