Out of the top four cellular players Ufone has been the biggest impetus behind the Cellular industry’s 17% growth as declared by PTA in its annual report for the year 2008-2009. Ufone’s is at the top with an astounding revenue growth of 46% during past year.
The report states that cellular telecom sector in Pakistan maintained a positive growth rate for the year 2008-09 despite a cut throat tariff and call packages competition and sluggish economic conditions in the country.
A recently released annual report PTA for the year 2008-2009 has shown growth of 17% in revenue for the cellular industry overall reflecting that the industry is involved in a healthy competition and its strategy to increase customer base as well as revenues through value added services and call minutes has worked so far.
Amongst the top four players, Ufone led with 46% increase in revenue, Mobilink the largest cellular operator in the country in terms of declared customer base has increased its net revenue by 4%over the same period, Telenor also performed well with 14% increase and Warid telecom fared with 9% increase in revenue. The total revenue of the industry saw a growth from Rupees 182.122 billion in the year 2007-2008 to Rupees 212.423 billion in the year 2008-2009.
But despite these increases in revenue the most of the operators are showing losses as these have to invest further in a competitive market. Unfone however has shown a profit of Rs 1.7 billion despite that fact it has further invested USD 245 million in the last year to expand and improve its network. PTA attributes this to Ufone’s robust and prudent handling of its finances.
PTA also has noted that Average Revenue Per User has also decreased over the year as the customer base has expanded into the lower income segment that used voice telephony more instead of value added services. Mobilink and Ufone here again have shown the way with leading the industry by getting better revenue as compared to the rest of the industry from data services.
