The telecom sector sold more than half a million high-speed mobile internet connections in March, 2016, taking the country’s broadband subscriber base above 30 million for the first time, according to the latest data of Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA).
The number of broadband connections in the country increased to 31 million at the end of March, 2016, up 5.7% compared to 29.3 million of the previous month, the PTA’s data showed.
A breakdown of statistics shows the number of third-generation (3G) and 4G network users reached 27.8 million at the end of the month under review, constituting 90% of the country’s total broadband subscriber base. This was an increase of 1% compared to 26.1 million of the preceding month.
The mobile internet users now account for more than one-fifth (21.2%) of the country’s total cellular base – the cellular mobile operators (CMOs)’ overall user base (voice and data users combined) increased by 1.5 million or 1.2% month-over-month to finish at 131.4 million at the end of March.
Mobilink ended at the top with almost 38.11 million subscriptions at the end of the review period followed by Telenor Pakistan, which finished second with 36.7 million users in the same period. China Mobile Pakistan (Zong), Ufone and Warid were third, fourth and fifth operators with 24.66 million, 20.82 million and 11.02 million users respectively.
Also leading the mobile broadband category, Mobilink boasted over 8.4 million 3G users at the end of March followed by Telenor, which had 7.6 million 3G users.
Zong remained third in the mobile broadband category increasing its 3G users to 5.6 million while its 4G subscriptions passed 435,000. Ufone’s 3G user base improved to 5.1 million while Warid surpassed 283,000 users on its Long Term Evolution (LTE) network at the end of March.
