Pakistan's Telecom Industry saw Year 2009 a difficult year as the overall growth and FDI declined as compared to previous years and millions of connections went offline due to their un-registered or fake registrations status.
As per data provided by PTA, Foreign Direct Investments declined by 48 percent during the past year while overall growth also declined besides cut in subscribers' ratio. However, despite very harsh working conditions for telecom operators due to ongoing global recession, hiked inflation, tough competition, law and order situation in the country and increased saturation rate for cellular subscribers, the Telecom industry did pretty well during the entire year.
Telenor, Warid and Zong did well in terms of adding new customers, showing positive gain in market share. Mobilink was successful in maintaining its lead. However, Telenor lead from the front as the company added 3.4 million customers, while Warid could grab 2 million. Zong stood third in race with 1.47 million customers during November 2008 to November 2009. Telenor is currently second in terms of Market share, while Mobilink still being at top. Ufone slipped down to forth position with Warid ahead of it at third.As far as total subscribers are concerned, Mobilink had 30,480,398 subscribers in November 2009; Telenor 22,279,449; Warid edging ahead of Ufone with 18,718,419; Ufone 18,361,072; and Zong 6,869,174. Significant changes also were witnessed in Year 2009 as far as market share is concerned as Telenor grabbed a lion's share of 2 percent market share in year 2009.
As of 2008, Mobilink had 33 percent market share in year 2008 while Telenor and Ufone had 21 percent each while Warid 19 percent and Zong 6 percent. However in 2009, Mobilink lost one percent of its share and slipped to 32 percent, Telenor added another two percent and stood at 23 percent, while Ufone and Warid sustained their tally at 21 percent while. Zong also got one percent and remained at 7 percent market share. The price war amongst cellular companies remained the same; however, the focus was found revolving the 30 second billing packages and SMS packages. Cellular companies started directly addressing each others in TVCs where we saw a clear tussle amongst the operators.
