Companies coming up with cheap internet packages for survival, dominance. CREATIVE COMMONS
The gradual shift of telecommunication companies from voice to data services in Pakistan is not a secret now, thanks to the growing demand for smartphones which are expected to further attract people in the coming months and years.
This shift in focus has intensified competition among telecom companies, forcing them to offer affordable internet data packages for their survival and dominance in the industry, say industry players.
The five telecom companies operating in Pakistan are anxiously waiting for the auction of 3G (third generation) licences to enjoy real innovation in data communication services, but before that they are preparing themselves as well as the people for technological advancements.
As telecom service providers upgrade their systems, they are providing mobile internet users with a variety of packages at relatively cheap prices compared to voice and SMS services.
Mobile internet users often utilise these packages for internet surfing, chatting, weather, stock and news updates and downloading games, but globally and also in Pakistan, a major chunk of mobile users take the facility to use Facebook and WhatsApp.
This competitive field of so-called ‘over-the-top’ (OTT) instant messaging platforms has seen explosive growth over the past couple of years, with companies offering near-identical services and competing for dominance and market penetration.
Cellular operators have come up with innovative offers allowing customers to use apps such as WhatsApp and social networking site Facebook at affordable rates. Use of these two popular sites increases data (mobile internet) revenues, which are increasingly becoming a major part of profits for mobile operators.
The price for visiting these two sites is as low as Re1 per day. There are other monthly data packages as well.
“Telecom companies run their business for providing communication channels to people, we cannot break the change but we have to adopt the change as per the global trend and customer requirement for smooth business and increased customer base,” said Usman Masood Noor, value added services head of Warid Telecom.
“For customer satisfaction, we have to think forward and provide them with different communication channels not only at affordable but also at cheap rates,” he added.
Globally, data services form a big chunk of a telecom operator’s revenue. Facebook users in Pakistan have crossed the nine-million mark and with the popularity of smartphones a lot of users prefer to connect to the social networking site through their mobiles.
With the market flooded with cheap and affordable smartphones, revenues of telecom operators will shift from voice and SMS to data services.
Mobile phone subscribers in the country have crossed the 120-million mark and internet users have reached 30 million, with this WhatsApp and Facebook usage is bound to increase. All the relevant players, including the telecom industry, are constantly innovating to cater for the demand of tech-savvy youth.
According to Noor, a large part of revenue from data services – up to 70% – comes from three major cities – Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad – as well as Faisalabad to some extent because of high literacy rate as people in rural areas are not increasingly opting for data services at this stage.
Telecoms earned approximately 15% of the total revenue from VAS (data) services, of this, roughly 12-13% came from GPRS/EDGE (mobile internet), Noor added.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 1st, 2013.
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