ISLAMABAD: According to PTA, the number of smartphone users has overtaken old-school 2G sets for the first time in the country.
A number of other achievements were also highlighted in the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority’s annual report, including broadband subscribers reaching 100 million. This played an important role in boosting the industry’s revenue.
According to the report, the telecom industry paid Rs179 billion in general sales tax, withholding tax, customs duty and other taxes in the fiscal year 2020-21 compared to Rs148.9bn in the last fiscal year.
A report states that the country’s success in fighting the Covid-19 pandemic and its strategies to facilitate the industry and protect consumers led to the proliferation of all-inclusive connectivity and the overall growth of the sector.
The PTA statistics show that for the first time smartphones, capturing 52 per cent market share, have taken over 2G cellphones, which have 48pc of the market.
2G sets had a market share of almost 60pc in the country In the financial year 2017-18.
IT and Telecom Minister Syed Aminul Haque said policies made in 2020 have started producing results. He expressed his confidence in the success of the government’s Digital Pakistan.
“Certain policy relaxations and the initiative to start mobile phone manufacturing in the country has led to a major change in the overall telecom scenario,” he said.
As the number of locally assembled phones reached 24.65m, mobile sets’ imports dropped from 24.51m in 2020 to 10m in 2021.
The report shows that including the world’s biggest smartphone maker Samsung, 30 companies have been granted licenses for mobile set production locally.
The number of broadband subscribers reached 102.7m subscribers in 2021, the report said.
Telecom and ICT services have a nationwide spread of 89pc of the population, while up to 49pc Pakistanis have mobile broadband connections. With the expansion of 3G and 4G services, broadband data usage increased 52pc during 2020-21 to 6,855 petabytes (one petabyte equals 1,000 terabytes).
The telecom sector’s revenue touched its highest level of Rs644bn during the financial year, as a result of increased internet usage.
Active mobile wallets also grew by 72% and went from Rs26.7m to Rs46m in the last year. As a result, with an increase of 35%, the number of active mobile wallet users reached 246,280 over the last year.
Jazz remains the market leader with Rs69.79m mobile subscribers and 38.45m mobile broadband subscribers. Telenor has the second-highest number of 49.27m subscribers, followed by Zong (40.49m) and Ufone (23.11m).
The PTA says that in the fiscal year 2021-22, their primary focus will remain on monitoring the quality of service and its coverage. While they are also eyeing launching additional spectrum and initiating the rollout of 5G and increasing the network area of fibre optics across the country.