Cellular subscribers growth reduces sharply in 1HFY09

[LahoreEstate]

KARACHI: Subscriber growth of cellular phone companies witnessed a sharp decline in the first half of current fiscal year 2008-09 compared with the corresponding period of previous fiscal.

This is an indication of saturation in the cellular phone market, as despite offering different attractive packages the operators have failed to attract customers.

The latest data released by Pakistan Telecom Authority (PTA) revealed that cellular firms have added only 0.581 million connections on their network during 1HFY09 against a growth of 11.2 million in 1HFY08.

The number of subscribers has reached 89.9 million by end of half fiscal year whereas it was 89.3 million at the beginning of the fiscal year in July 2008.

In the last two months, cellular phone user base has started shrinking in the country, posting negative growth despite falling calls rates and services. Around 0.618 million subscribers have become inactive by getting rid of their connections from the network of five cellular phone companies.

The mobile phone subscriber number was at its all time high in October 2008 with 90.52 million subscribers. The subscriber's rate is now witnessing a decreasing trend as the number of connections has reduced to 89.90 million by the end of December 2008, showing 0.7 percent decline in last two months.

Telecom analysts believe that cellular phone companies have captured the active chunk of Pakistani market that slightly slowed down their penetration in the big cities. However, companies have chalked out unique strategies to expand their service in small cities and villages of the country in order to attract more customers in their networks.

They added that economic slowdown, inflation coupled with the heavy tax burden on the services has diminished the affordability of using mobile services in the country.

In view of the country's population of around 160 million, the mobile phone teledensity has reached 55.80 by the end of December 2008, which was 56.20 in November 2008.

According to PTA, Mobilink was leading the market share with 28.47 million subscribers, followed by Telenor with 19.38 million subscribers just an edge up from Ufone having the preference of 19.30 million people.

Similarly, 16.91 million people are using the service of the UAE-based Warid by December 2008. Chinese mobile phone company, Zong posted healthy sales growth to reach a subscriber base of 5.5 million in the country.

Officials told Daily Times that the operators have regulated their sales and marketing of the product following strict actions taken by the authorities to raid the illegal franchises and sales centre.

The cellular operators have also blocked hundred thousand unverified and unregistered connections on the directives of regulators.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp...2009_pg5_1