Do you remember that Mobilink used the same dialogue (back in August 2007) “In order to provide better services, we will charge your call center calls”, which was followed by everyone and Warid is Also doing the same thing with customer service calls.
This time its Telenor, that is displaying following message on its website.
"In order to provide better services to our valued subscribers, each balance inquiry via *444# (Rupee Account Balance), *111# (Free SMS Balance) and *222# (Free Minutes Balance) strings will be charged 10 paisa (exclusive of tax), with effect from 1st Aug 09"
Be A Millionaire – PTCL Broadband offers you the chance of a lifetime. Order PTCL Broadband between now and the 14th of August and win Rs. 1 Million and many exciting new laptops”All PTCL Broadband orders that are placed during the ‘Run up’ to the ‘independence day’, will have a chance of becoming one of the many lucky winners. This ‘independence day’ Broadband promotion is being launched with the following objectives:
Key Highlights
-One Grand Prize of Rs. 1 Million
-20 Prizes of Laptops
-All new Broadband subscribers who place their orders from July 16th to August 14th are eligible for the draw
-All new Student Broadband subscribers who place their orders from July 16th to August 14th are also eligible for the draw
-Applicable on all 1MB, 2MB and 4MB packages
-An open and transparent lucky draw at the end of the period will decide the winners.
Telenor Pakistan faced an operating loss of $14.3 million in the first quarter of 2009, following a loss of $ US 49 million in 2008.
Average revenue per user in Pakistan stood at just Rs. 252 ($ US 3) per subscriber per month in the first quarter, the lowest in all 13 countries in which Telenor operates, but the number of subscribers grew by nearly 20 percent year-on-year.
A fresh air in the quarter 2, 09 where Telenor Pakistan has posted a growth in revenues by 8% and netting 908k subscribers compared to 597k in the previous quarter.
Just two days back a court in Moscow has allowed the sale of shares owned by Telenor in VimpelCom, a number two company by size in Russia, in which Telenor has 29.9 % of shares. The order from the court will result in a total loss of all the assets Telenor posses in Russia.
Earlier this year, the Siberian court ordered Telenor to pay VimpelCom damages after Farimex Products Inc., a small stakeholder in VimpelCom, sued Telenor for blocking the mobile phone network’s expansion into Ukraine few years ago. Telenor had termed the suit a fake and flawed and refused to pay the damages.
Court had authorized the auction of Telenor’s 29.9 percent share last month in a bid to recover $ 1.7 billion as court-awarded damages. If courts orders are implemented Telenor will lose every thing there before it can go for an appeal.In Short Telenor is in big trouble in all his operating countries and going may be they want to sell the setup. In these days china mobile is in contact with Telenor to may be take over the setup.
There is a rumor circulating in the market that Wateen is looking forward to a potential buyer to get the company rolling. Reportedly, they had allocated huge budget for TVC in recent past, but they haven’t come up with anything in the market.
It merits mentioning here that Wateen had used its last card by offering un-metered downloads for some of its packages, which gave them the opportunity to get maximum numbers of customers. But even this promotion was not advertised heavily on TV.
We are told that they are also incorporating tele-sales to boost their subscriber base, however, results of such practices are yet to appear.