Telecom sector’s revenue hits record high

Income reaches Rs694b, driven by increased use of telecom services

ISLAMABAD:

The telecom sector achieved a record high revenue of Rs694 billion in financial year 2021-22 as the use of telecom services grew amid a favourable regulatory environment, said Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) in its annual report for 2022.

The sector attracted an investment of $2.07 billion and contributed Rs325.2 billion to the national exchequer, including Rs222.7 billion in taxes. The remaining amount of Rs102.5 billion comprised proceeds of the Next Generation Mobile Services auction and the fee for licence renewal, said the report, which was released on Tuesday.

It highlighted encouraging statistics of expansion in the use of telecom services across Pakistan. Despite a challenging year marked by rising inflationary pressures and profitability concerns, the telecom sector performed well due to a progressive and enabling regulatory environment, it emphasised.

A noticeable achievement of the year was that, for the first time in the country’s history, the import volume of mobile handsets registered a decline as most of the demand was met through the locally manufactured products.

Pakistan produced a record 41.35 million mobile handsets, however, the number of smartphones was at half of last year’s volume as only 17.3 million smartphones were assembled from January to September 2022.

Local mobile sets manufacturing has generated jobs for skilled workers, while many international brands such as Samsung, Nokia, Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo, Techno and Infinix have already entered Pakistan’s market as manufacturers, PTA pointed out in the report.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 11^th, 2023.

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