#10. No cell phones made in Pakistan.
#09. Not much of Urdu services or local content.
#08. Driving + talking on mobile = Accidents …. And no one is doing anything about it.
#07. People using their phone as a status symbol.
#06. No unlimited calling plans.
#05. Silly advertising which is completely out of touch with ground realities.
#04. PTA: Sleepy customer service + a lousy web site where finding information is a pain.
#03. Too many fancy schmancy services (e.g. mobile TV) but 3G and data services are still a rip off.
#02. Prime Minister firing off a statement every few days about rising mobile subscriber numbers, alluding that all problems of Pakistanis are now solved and demanding that Pakistan is where all the foreign. investment should flow to.
#01. Mobile phone snatching.
Babar Bhatti is a Telecom professional based in Dallas, Texas. See more at Babar’s blog: State of Telecom Industry in Pakistan.
Nice point Aqil,
FDIs for the sake of FDIs mean nothing. Flow of invester money for brown-field investments (like acquisition of banks) and investment in non-production mass consumption ventures (like telecom) can give an illusion of growth and prosperity, but these investments can potentially become a pain in the neck once the investers begin repatriating profits. Keep checking the figures of capital outflows and you will see how our consumption-led growth hype retards our long-term future growth.
Talking of mobiles, the CIA World factbook article on Pakistan:
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world -factbook/print/pk.html
gives the figure of 48,289,136 (2006) mobiles. I wonder if this figure isn’t a bit of exaggeration…
Every third Pakistani holding a mobile set… find hard to swallow… especially given that two-thirds of our population lives under $2 a day.
Dear PMA ref post 5:
“What makes our people to come into the streets en-mass and wage gun battles against each other like they have done it last week in Karachi?”
As mentioned by Adnan Ahmed (post 7), in this case organized groups were involved. But if you are looking for an underlying cause for this culture of violance, then it’s probably the long history of authoritarian rule and the absence of a democratic culture. This leaves violance as the only way to push one’s views/agenda.
“How to convince the “educated-upper-middle-classâ€Â? to get involved in the uplift of the “large-mass-of-illiterate-peopleâ€Â??”
That’s a hard one. It is human nature to be insensative to the plight of others beyond a certain point. This becomes all the more pronounced if one is shielded from the ugly realities of the difficulties faced by others in their daily lives. The best that could be done in principle is to reduce the level of such shielding and give the educated upper middle class people more exposure to the problems of others. But then, who would do that?
For example, due to parallel education systems, people like you and me are able to get better education while others don’t. If we had a single education system, we would all have a stake in its improvement. But we don’t because we can send our kids to better schools. We are neither willing to give up this privilege nor invest our time and energy on the improvement of the education system for others. I don’t think we will change unless we feel directly threatened that our privileges might be taken away if others don’t get a better deal.
One more thing:
“The import of advanced technology and sophisticated sets with camera and music facility are on top while Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) says that this trend looks to grow in the next one year as these features have become standard.”
There is apparently no figure or breakup of the imported mobile phones in terms of their level of features or price.
But looking at just two of the numbers in the report ($268 million on the import of mobile sets in July-Nov 2006 and the statement that the number of imported cell phones has crossed 1 million per month), we get a rough average price of around $54, which converts to around Rs 3240 (taking 1 dollar = Rs. 60). So the average mobile phone in Pakistan is a pretty decent one.
The following item in the news gives some figures:
http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=5047 7
You can read the full thing, but I am pasting below some important parts:
“LAHORE: Due to increase in cellular subscribers, the import of mobile phones has increased almost six times over the last three years.”
“During July-November 2006 of last year, mobile phones worth $294.7 million were imported in the country as compared to $51.3 million during the same period in 2003.”
“According to an estimate, there are more than 1,50,000 mobile phone shops across Pakistan generating employment for over 6,00,000 people.”
“The total value of handsets imported in Pakistan during the last fiscal year crossed $1 billion and expected growth in imports is 25 per cent.”
“According to the figures issued by the State Bank of Pakistan, $268 million was spent on the import of mobile phone and other apparatus during July-November 2004. Mobile phone and other apparatus worth $451 million were imported between July-November 2005.”
Two points here. One, does anyone know how much foreign exchange we are spending on importing the handsets. Can someone tell Shaukat Aziz (if he is still around) next time he brings up the subject of the number of total subscribers, that we can save some of this money by atleast manufacturing the handsets inside the country (And mind you, this is a very low tech industry, just like putting PCs together). They may be able to export the handsets as well. Just go to Nokia, and ask them to set one factory in Pakistan as we probably have the critical mass here to do this.
Two, while the showoff factor is there, please note that the guy in the picture is definitely not showing off his phone. This device has brought change in the lives of the common man. If each cellphone saves one trip (or gets someone an extra order), that is huge, in terms of the productivity gain (less wasted time), and more economic activity. We also need to remember that while customer service of these companies may not be good, the cell phone companies are generating an incredible number of jobs for Pakistanis. How many people does each person here know, who are employed by this industry?
Nice Picture..Give the donkey guy a break..people.
May be he has to take care of some important business, if he is riding a donkey doen’t mean he has no life…just look at the back of his cart, he has got his family enjoying the ears of roasted corn, he look lot happier than the millions of miserable well to do pakistanis i had seen.
Sharuk, King_Faisal, Saad: Interesting comments and viewpoints.
Here’s a link to a post about a study which said that cell phone users in Pakistan prefer style over features.
http://telecompk.wordpress.com/2007/03/28/cell-pho ne-users-in-pakistan-prefer-style-over-features/
And another one about the contribution of telecom to Pakistan’s economy:
http://telecompk.wordpress.com/2007/04/04/telecom- industrys-contribution-to-pakistans-economy/
The growth of cell phones has been phenomenal in Pakistan. You cannot go anywhere and not see huge ads of cell phones. Newspapers seem to run on them. This must certainly have economic benefits. But it is service industry not manufacturing. So much of teh benefit does not seep to economy.
I get irked by too many plans and options that keep changing every week and you waste lots of time just figuring out if you have teh right plan.