All cellular companies of the country generated approximately 100 billion Short Messaging Service (SMS) during July to December as compared to 86 billion SMS transmitted during the preceding two quarters, showing a 16 increase. This was revealed in the quarterly report issued by Pakistan Telecommunication Communication (PTA). Ufone leads the SMS traffic parameters by a clear margin followed by Telenor and Mobilink. Warid and Zong have significantly low SMS traffic as compared to their competitors.
The cellular international traffic of Pakistan has also reached a record high with 3.4 billion minutes registered during first six months of current fiscal year, showing a 22 percent increase from the last year. The last two quarters of previous financial year recorded 2.8 billion minutes which shows increasing trend, establishing the fact that mobile usage is the preferred medium of communication for inbound and outbound calls to Pakistan. The report revealed a steady growth of making calls from Pakistan to other countries as 0. 96 billion international outgoing minutes have been recorded during the first two quarters of 2010-11 as compared to 0.93 billion minutes in the last two quarters of previous year.
Similarly, international incoming traffic has grown continuously for the last two quarters and reached 2.5 billion minutes as compared to 1.9 billion minutes during previous two quarters. The increase in the traffic is due to the low international tariffs and bundled international packages being offered by cellular mobile companies in Pakistan while huge surge in the SMS traffic owes largely to the attractive and wide range of bundle packages.
