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WEEKLY
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| Country’s teledensity touches 62 per cent |
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Friday, November 20, 2009
By our correspondent
KARACHI: Overall teledensity of the country reached 62.4 per cent in September 2009, according to data released by Pakistan Telecommunication Authority.
Cellular segment remained the highest contributor in that regard with 58.60 per cent penetration while overall fixed-line penetration was recorded at 3.8 per cent. On segregated basis, wireless local loop (WLL) penetration stood at 1.6 per cent while landline penetration was 2.2 per cent.
After average monthly net addition of more than one million in May-July 2009, subscriber additions in the cellular segment have declined notably since August 2009. During September 2009, monthly additions remained at just 125,000, which were almost 47 per cent lower month-on-month and 76 per cent lower than last year’s monthly average of 527,000 subscribers. With this, the overall base of the segment crossed 95.9 million subscribers at the month-end.
Mobilink remained the market leader with 30 million subscribers (31 per cent market share) while the second was Telenor. Interestingly, the highest monthly fall in subscribers was noted in Ufone at 503,000 while Telenor and Mobilink added 230,000 and 206,000 subscribers, respectively. Ufone has lost almost one million subscribers during the last two months probably due to recently launched unregistered/illegal SIMs blockage service by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority.
Abrar Hussain, telecom analyst at FCEL, said the addition of subscribers to the mobile segment are likely to stay dismal during the next few months due to PTA’s move to curb unregistered/illegal SIMs.
According to the data, WLL players have also witnessed a declining trend in net additions for the last two consecutive months with September 2009 additions remaining at approximately 16k subscribers, 11 per cent lower than the preceding month while 45 per cent lower than the monthly average additions of FY09.
The subscriber base of the segment expanded to 2.8 million growth of 3 per cent over end-June 2009 (FY09) level. On operator basis, Wateen continues to depict exceptional growth in its subscriber base at 100k with 12k net addition during the month a total of 28k new subscribers during 1QFY10.
On the other hand, PTCL lost 5.3k subscribers during the month though remained the market leader with 49 per cent share. Telecard and Worldcall, with a respective 24 per cent and 21 per cent market share, were the second and third largest market players in this regard.
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ISSN 1563-9479 
