Posted by: Abu Asma on December 25, 2008 at 1:34 PM
India and Pakistan share not only the history and culture but also the way people of both countries think for specific matters. Governments of both nations judged the demand of Telecom and IT, very early, somewhere in mid nineties. But when it comes to execution and better planning, India just crossed Pakistan.
Though India has quantitative advantages, but now at this point of time, it is well set as 6th biggest exporting nation in IT products. As the largest telecom market, India is the center of attention of all the big companies of the world. India is steadily following the policy of IT exports with a target of 42 Billion US$ in 2012. If Pakistan continues the same strategy, she will exceed only 5 billion US $ IT exports. However chances of getting this target are very little.
Another direction which was lately eyed by India was to follow the mobile manufacturing. In late 2004, India decided to start manufacturing low cost mobile sets which took off very quickly and soon became a challenge for neighboring country China.
According to a US based research group Grtener, in the last 12 months, Indian handset production has increased by 68%. If this trend continues, India will cross the European market in next 3 years in handset manufacturing, however only in low cost sets.
For records, it merits mentioning that during 2006 India produced nearly 31 million mobile sets which were of 5 billion US dollars in value while 2007 saw a growth of 3 times higher then the previous figures i.e. 95 million low cost handset.
In April 2005 Finnish company elcoteq was the first company to set up a telecoms manufacturing unit in Bangalore, quickly followed by Korean giants LG and Samsung, before market leader Nokia also got in on the act in 2006.
These handsets plants in India are not only catering local market’s demand but Nokia has begun to export mobile phones from Chennai (Madras) to the Gulf States and Africa. In addition, there are a few locally branded phone vendors and manufacturers such as Spice, Usha Lexus, and BPL that are either manufacturing to serve local and international markets.
While in Pakistan, we have different story, all these handset companies are earning millions of dollars from Pakistani market but no one is ready to set up a manufacturing plant in Pakistan. They are just opening sale points to push Pakistan towards a consumer market.
Here, in my opinion, PTA and government of Pakistan made a strategic mistake by not encouraging mobile phone manufacturers for investments in this country. Although its apparent that we could fetch at least one mobile manufacturer due to demand (especially the low end handsets’ demand) few years back, but we focused just the cellular companies.
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Posted by: Farhan Janjua on December 24, 2008 at 9:19 PM
Post by Farhan Janjua of Wizardies
Nokia Kashmir Mapping controversy caused a wild protest by the youth wing of Indian Political Party BJP. MSN India reported that Nokia Mapping software was showing entire Kashmir as a part of Pakistan. The youth wing of BJP acting wildly, entered into a Nokia store in Jabalpur city and broke out the shop and burnt mobile phones.
BJP accused Nokia for being involved in anti-nationalism activities and claimed it “a case of anti-nationalism. We demanded that the Nokia and other people involved in the conspiracy be booked for spreading anti-national activities. We will intensify the protest if this case has not been registered.”
Nokia officials immediately issued an apology note stating that this mistake was so unfortunate. They further stated that it was an older version of Nokia Maps and the error has now been fixed. Nokia also clarified that Nokia Maps sources all maps and imagery from Navteq Inc.
The shop owner called burning the store unjustifiable saying: “This is the problem of Nokia and we are not concerned with it as we are merely shop owners, not the client of the company. But, the manner in which the mob entered and started torching the shop is bad,” said Rafiq Khan, the Nokia showroom owner.”
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Posted by: Aamir Attaa on December 24, 2008 at 2:02 PM
Just came to know through very reliable sources that Akbar Khan, who was heading Brands at Mobilink and the key person behind Mobilink’s boom in recent years, has resigned from his responsibilities at Mobilink.
We are told that there are good chances of Mr. Akbar going into Ufone.
Update: Mobilink’s spokesman has confirmed Mr. Akbar’s resignation
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Posted by: Abu Asma on December 24, 2008 at 12:47 PM
Professor John Lee of Perth University, once during his lectures told us that in advertising it is important that what you want to say should be simple and clear …rather then in a difficult and un-clear way. People might be very impressive with high beat music and the lyrics of your ad but if the message is not clear then you have to re-think your campaign.
Early this year through its launch campaign, Zong introduced a new and simple way of advertising i.e. direct and simple message with the spice of taunting competitors. The big guns of advertising were only criticizing that the approach was a copy. After first ad, another ad came with some more thoughtful thinking of just hitting other companies for telling a lie on the matter of first minute charges.
Despite the criticism it received, everyone will accept that these two early campaigns changed the course of telecom advertising in Pakistan.
Salient feature of Zong ad campaigns
- Simple and infomercial approach
- With a spice of criticism on other companies
- People friendly talking way
- Low cost common character instead of big stars
- Good packages like break time offer
- Ambush marketing plan with more than 100 ads on TV within first 4 days
- Very attractive tune of TVCs
After almost one year, if we analyze the advertising campaigns in Pakistan now it is evident that most of the companies are following the footsteps of Zong with simple TVCs. For instant, Mobilink is airing a TVC which says, “ager wo call nahi kerta to kiya howa, main kar longi”….. All 3 characters follow the same style of talking which was introduced by Zong.
If we remember, Mobilink excessively used celebrities in their TVCs including cricket star Wasim Akram, Film star Shan and Veneeza Ahemd and many other big personalities.
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Posted by: Abu Asma on December 24, 2008 at 12:10 PM
A van in remote villages of Abbottabad has sold low cost SIMs with price tag of Rs. 100/-. Poor people took this offer as a good opportunity and bought connections at said price without any CNIC. These SIMs had Rs 150 balance and 50 free SMS. But, after 2 weeks or so, a message appeared on their phones which read like this “As your SIMs is not properly registered i.e. with out proper information of CNIC, so your SIM is being blocked now”. Hundreds of the SIMs purchased through this Van went down due to improper registration, and poor purchasers lost their hard earned money as the income sources are very limited in these areas with low agri-production and zero industry level.
First of all when the villagers told me that story, I was reluctant to accept it, and I knew that nothing can be done to reset it. However, I asked them to follow proper procedure for SIM registration on which they told me that they could give a copy of CNIC or at least the CNIC No, but, the seller never asked anything, they were just selling SIMs like peanut, told an angry lady Razia of Thath Karam Shah village on Lora Havalia Road.
“We don’t know what this SIM registration is, we never heard of it, even TV never told us any such thing, as PTV is the only media available here. Recently two companies, Ufone and Warid covered this area, so that is why people were very excited and envision it as an offer of the company for them”
Coming back from Abbotabad, I kept on thinking over the strategies of cellular companies and their poor sales’ network is causing loses to these poor people of remote areas. These poor never appear on mainstream media and are unable to contact higher authorities to get their complaints registered. When I crossed the Thall Chwok in Barakahu (a near by town of the capital Islamabad), there came across a live example of so-called sales person, in fact a hawker selling Warid SIMs at even cheaper rate . Amazingly, price tag was even better than what I was told back in the village. SIMs were being sold at Rs. 50 with 60 Rupee balance and 50 free SMS. I stayed there for 15 minutes and saw that Warid lovers were very excited about that offer and purchasing SIMs happily.
I gathered some courage and tried to educate the buyers and told them that these SIMs will get blocked soon, but they replied, “No worries jigar, nothing to worry about, as these SIMs are free for us, we will use the balance and that’s it”
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Posted by: Aamir Attaa on December 23, 2008 at 5:12 PM
Syed Hasnat Masood is Director Corporate Communications and Responsibility, Telenor Pakistan.
Hasnat has been with Telenor since September 2005. Hasnat’s department has three distinct functionalities:
- External Corporate Communications deals with the media to establish company position on various subjects;
- Internal Corporate Communications streamlines management-employee interactions to create better understanding of corporate objectives;
- Corporate Responsibility aims to integrate community relations into corporate strategy.
Before joining Telenor Pakistan, he worked with Proctor & Gamble Pakistan for 3 years in the External Relations department. Bringing a diverse set of academic and professional experiences, Hasnat holds a BA Hons in Bio-Chemistry from Vermont, USA. He started his career as a Scientist with Hoffmann-La Roche in New Jersey, USA and later moved to Pakistan.
Hasnat is into reading, writing, and backpacking.
ProPakistani.com: What is Telenor Pakistan’s definition of CSR and how do you practice it?
Syed Hasnat Masood: Telenor Pakistan has come up with a new concept about Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) called ‘Shared Value’; basically based on an idea to minimize the conventional expectations that social sector bears from a profitable business. Shared Value can be termed as a workable business environment which benefits its stakeholders and social community alike.
I believe that businesses’ responsibility towards the society begins when the company’s product or service is launched. Under the ‘Shared Value’ concept, a perfect business must make positive difference to social lives, is profitable to stakeholders and should be ethical in its nature.
If we look at telecom sector and its contribution towards the community, we can easily measure the difference it has made over the years. The Telecom sector alone has contributed 5 percent towards GDP of the country, created countless job opportunities (direct and in-direct), produced not only in-expensive but also effortless mode of communication and much more. The Telecom sector by default provides a major boost to the national economy, while Telenor’s own business impact can be felt with 18 million customers aboard – most of which are from rural areas. Majority of these 18 million customers, for instance from Gilgit, Sakardu etc, now for the first time have the opportunity to be a part of the information highway. They can use internet, make calls, and have a single click solution to communicate with anyone across the globe.
Over the years, Telenor Pakistan has played its effective role in boosting country’s economic cycle but not compromising with the standards that can harm society by any means. For this very purpose, we have code of conduct for everything, from workforce hiring to vendor management, from network rollout to anti-corruption. We have been strictly following these standards to remain responsible; so as to help our core business needs and also support the community with equal spirit.
ProPakistani.com: How do you see in-practice CSR activities in Pakistan from corporations, and in what areas we need further improvements?
Syed Hasnat Masood: I think, as an industry, we need to clear our concept about CSR. Practically and realistically, I believe any business has its first responsibility towards its shareholders, as they risk their money by investing it into business, so naturally they deserve a return. Next comes the community, since a business depends on the community to generate returns for its shareholders. Here is the point, you can’t reprioritize any of the responsibilities; neither can you switch their positions.
We see many organizations participate in CSR activities by contributing with funds that business generated from the community itself. In my opinion this is not the right approach.
So now back to CSR concept, a business should do CSR as part of its business cycle to keep it sustainable.
In my opinion, the core purpose of CSR should not be charity, as is usually termed, rather a company should strategically involve itself in a CSR activity primarily based on the expertise it carries.
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Posted by: Aamir Attaa on December 23, 2008 at 10:45 AM
Pakistan Telecommunication Authority has not issued LDI license to CMPak, despite its approval from Cabinet Division and Policy Directive from Ministry of Information and Technology.
Apparently the authority is reluctant to issue the license due to Government’s understanding with Etisalat, under which Pakistan can’t issue any LDI license to anyone, after Etisalat took over 26 percent shares in PTCL.
However, CMPak’s case is little different, as the company existed even before Etisalat’s agreement with the brand name of Paktel, which latter started its GSM operations in Pakistan with brand name of Zong in February 2008 after it was fully owned by CMPak.
CMPak had applied for an LDI license, under which the Cabinet Division issued approval on September 24th, 2008. Subsequently, Ministry of Information Technology issued policy directives for license to PTA. However, company is still waiting for its license from PTA for last 2 months. Recently, the issue came under discussion when Chinese Ambassador discussed the matter with Minister Privatization, Mr. Naveed Qamar.
Zafar Usmani, Chief Operating Officer of China Mobile Pakistan has appealed to President Asif Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani to intervene in view of the long-term friendship and close ties between Pakistan and China and instruct the Telecom Authority to issue LDI licence to China Mobile Pakistan.
While, we are still waiting for PTA’s clarification that it’s spokesman promised yesterday through an email.
It merits mentioning here that Zong is currently dependent on other LDI operators for long distance and international traffic.
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Posted by: Aamir Attaa on December 22, 2008 at 11:22 AM
In very recent development regarding the expected changes in top level management for Mobilink, Marius Constantin Armeanca, Chief Technical Officer, Mobilink has been replaced by Ramy Reyad.
Ramy Reyad, an Egyptian by nationality has served Mobilink’s technical department before for four years as a director.
Mobilink spokesman confirmed the replacement and commented that Marius Constantin Armeanca is leaving for an international assignment but with-in same group. He further commented that Ramy Reyad will take on responsibilities as CTO Mobilink on January 10th, 2009.
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