1.2m users added in February, up 14% month-on-month.
Cellular mobile operators managed to pass 10 million mobile broadband subscriptions as biometric verification of subscriber identity module (SIM) cards slowed down growth in February 2015, statistics from Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) revealed on Saturday.
The total number of third-generation (3G) mobile subscriptions increased to 10.3 million as CMOs added 1.2 million new users to their 3G network in February, according to the PTA, translating to a 14% increase over 9 million 3G subscribers the previous month.
February figures indicate a slower growth in 3G sales because the CMOs had recorded a staggering 58% month-on-month increase in 3G subscriptions in the month of January.
The overall cellular user base, too, remained almost stagnant in February. Telecom sector’s overall subscriber base reached 136.6 million during the month under review, a meagre increase of 10 basis points or 0.1% compared to 136.4 million of the previous month.
Both the telecom regulator and industry expert had predicted slower growth for the months of February and March because of the ongoing biometric SIM verification campaign.
The telecom regulator stated that since the launch of the BVS campaign, 10.9 million SIMs were disowned by users for blocking till March 8 – the number includes 8.2 million SIMs that were blocked already.
The number of subscriptions came down significantly in February as millions of SIMs were blocked by CMOs recently. Moreover, the cellular operators were barred from selling new SIMs through retail channels, which further slowed their sales.
As per current statistics, Telenor Pakistan is leading the mobile broadband market with 3.14 million 3G subscriptions as of February-end, 2015, up 15% from 2.7 million the previous month. It was followed by Mobilink, which had 2.6 million broadband users at the end of February, up 19% compared to 2.1 million of the previous month.
Ufone had 2.4 million 3G subscriptions at the end of February, up 10% from 2.2 million of January while Zong had 2.1 million 3G connections at the end of February, up 14% from 1.8 million of the previous month.
The number of 4G or Long Term Evolution (LTE) subscribers increased to 68,184 subscriptions at the end of February, up 39% compared to 49,098 the previous month. Warid Telecom had 60,923 LTE users while Zong had 7,261 4G users at the end of February.
As per current statistics, Mobilink retains its position as market leader with 38.3 million (2G and 3G) users as of February.
Telenor Pakistan is the second largest cellular operator with 36.7 million users followed by Zong with 27.7 million subscribers. With its 21.7 million subscriptions, Ufone remains at number four while Warid Telecom remains the smallest operator with 12.1 million users.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 15th, 2015.
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