Pakistani demographic: A mouth-watering prospect for telecoms

If you are over twenty-five, chances are you are not on Facebook.

KARACHI:

Pakistan is a young country, and with a high population growth rate, it is getting even younger. According to the latest data available, 70% of Pakistan’s population is under the age of thirty. And about two thirds of Pakistan’s entire Facebook population of roughly nine million users, is under the age of twenty-five.

According to reports and surveys, the majority of users on Facebook use it as a meeting point, to socialise, to use FB messenger and to stay in contact with friends and family across the world, across Pakistan, and even in the same city.

Pakistan has a fast growing population of teenagers, people in their 20s and in their 30s. Disposable income has been on the rise in the middle-class as well over the past few years if one looks at the rise in retail spending, the continued growth in the number of Sim-card issued and the rise in the number of handsets being sold in Pakistan.

And the bulk of this spending, predominantly on commodities which cannot be considered as essentials, is coming from the younger population which will continue to drive this growth. Also, there are more and more families with two incomes now – as younger women enter the workforce in greater numbers – so the potential is even bigger.

So how will this translate into more growth for the information and communication technology industry? Plainly put, Pakistan is not a country where people have a propensity for savings. We like to spend what we earn. We are appearing to be earning more, or at least a segment of the population is.

Smartphones are not only becoming more popular, they are becoming cheaper and with more buying power, it is expected that the smartphone penetration, which stands at just about 10% now, will increase exponentially.

Right now about 76% of people surf the net at home, and about 22% say they do it on their cellphones. While the average online session is very short, at just seven minutes, about 80% of the online population spends an hour on the net. And right now internet penetration is just 15%.

This will shift because of two reasons. One is the aforementioned, the rise in smartphone popularity and affordability, and the second is the expected launch of 3G.

With the availability of 3G, the internet experience on smartphones will improve by leaps and bounds, and this will mostly be lapped up by the younger population which likes to stay in touch, they like to hang out, they like to meet up and hear stories and they like to tell their friends what they are doing. In a country like Pakistan where there are no real hangouts for young people, virtual hangouts like Facebook are expected to become increasingly popular.

And more and more will be doing this on cellphones or on tablets.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 8^th, 2013.

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