The epicentre of growth in mobile phone services in Pakistan is gradually shifting to semi-urban and rural areas from urban localities that have reached close to the saturation level.
“Remote areas have started showing growth, led by the expansion in cellular networks, increasing awareness of the usage of voice and data connections and availability of mobile handsets at affordable prices,” an industry official commented while talking to The Express Tribune on Tuesday.
His comments came following the release of latest data by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) that reported a continuous addition of an average one million new mobile phone users in the voice and data categories each.
According to the regulator, the number of mobile phone users grew to 136.48 million in December 2016 from 135.86 million in the previous month, a rise of 0.62 million.
Similarly, the number of 3G/4G/LTE mobile internet users rose to 37.57 million in December from 36.41 million in the prior month, an increase of 1.16 million in the data users.
Total connections remained significantly higher in the urban centres. However, rural areas, particularly some semi-urban areas like Bahawalpur, Sadiqabad, Hyderabad, Abbottabad and Mardan, were leading the growth in mobile phone penetration in terms of percentage, the industry official added.
He said two leading cellular firms according to their customer base had expanded their networks to more than 250 cities in the country.
“The government had restricted cellular phone companies in 2013-14, when the PTA issued 3G/4G licences to the telcos, to first provide broadband services in top five cities of the country,” he said.
This forced the cellular firms to focus entirely on the cities of Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore, Quetta and Peshawar. They continued to strengthen their services there in the first five to six months after issuance of the licences. Later, they shifted their focus to other cities as well, he said.
A significant rural population uses phones to remain connected with their outstation relatives and friends, who have gone there for education and in search of livelihood.
However, the usage of internet in rural areas is slightly different from that in the urban centres. Most of them use internet to enjoy audio and video songs and to watch movies.
In the urban areas, majority of the people use internet to connect with social networks and use WhatsApp, Facebook and Twitter.
4G feature phones are now available at Rs10,000, which is quite affordable. “Frequent launch of new 3G/4G/LTE features-enabled phones by even smaller companies shows the growth pattern,” he said.
PTA said the annual cellular mobile density increased to 69.80% in December 2016 from 69.60% in the previous month. The teledensity peaked at 76.46% in 2013-14 and fell to 60.7% next year due to blocking of millions of fake SIMs during the biometric verification drive. Since then, the density has been on a constant recovery path.
3G-enabled SIMs
Information and communications technology expert Noman Said pointed out that mobile phone internet usage was increasing as all new SIMs being issued to the subscribers were 3G-enabled.
Source: http://tribune.com.pk/story/1298601/semi-urban-rural-areas-lead-growth-cellphone-services/