Posted by: Aamir Attaa on November 18, 2008 at 5:15 PM
We have been seeing Mobilink losing customers in recent months, hence the revenues too, resultantly; the impact can be felt on overall performance of Orascom, the parent company of Mobilink.
Recently, Orascom Telecom (OTH) reported its 3rd quarter, 2008 profit of US$ 90.5 million - down by 28% compared to same period last year – while revenues reached US$1.37 billion in Q3 2008. Mobilink’s subscribers reached 31,359,049 mark out of 79,267,452 Orascom subscribers in 6 regions.
Mobilink reported ARPU of 2.9 $, lesser as compared to 3.9 $, same period last year. The decrease in ARPU in Pakistan is mainly due to the decreasing value of Pakistani Rupee against the US Dollar as well as rising inflation and an increase in sales tax which has further impacted consumers’ spends. Continue Reading This Story
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Posted by: Aamir Attaa on November 14, 2008 at 9:20 AM
All cellular companies, except Ufone, have collectively asked the government to reduce taxes on telecom services. In a collective letter, mobile phone companies have mentioned the government to reconsider increased GST, taxes on handsets and removal of SIM activation tax.
This was carried away after a significant decline in revenues and increased operational expenses of cellular companies. However, cellular companies are still awaiting any positive response from the government regarding this. Continue Reading This Story
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Posted by: Aamir Attaa on November 11, 2008 at 7:42 PM
Guest Post by Naeem Pani Wala
Unlike other countries, cellular companies in Pakistan hold a vital share in advertising spending; both in print and electronic media - Mobile advertising is considered as back bone of advertising industry in Pakistan.
When we see global stats, In 2007 only 4 billion US dollars were spent by mobile companies on advertising (globally), while only Procter and Gamble had more advertising budget then this, that year – however, situation in Pakistan is obviously lot different.
High paying and long running advertising campaigns contributed a lot in advertising industry. I remember that before telecom era, even the salaries were very small in advertising companies, but then came the boom and advertising touched new heights.
Maybe it was strategic mistake by advertising industry to rely this much only on telecom sector. That’s the reason, the downfall of telecom sector (to some extent at least) is severely felt by advertising agencies at most. Continue Reading This Story
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Posted by: Aamir Attaa on November 8, 2008 at 12:54 AM
Ufone in collaboration with Huwaei launched its first Cell Site powered with Solar system. we must not forget that Warid was first to roll out it’s first solar site in Pakistan.
The site is situated in Tehsil Haroonabad , BhawalNagar. chosen of these cities might have some interest to their weather conditions as well.
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Posted by: Reality Bites on November 6, 2008 at 3:56 AM
“After weapons’ manufacturing industry, ‘Telco Industry’ is the world largest domain, said a renowned Telecom analyst of Asia, and in deed Telco industry has been playing major role in market & benefiting consumers in day to day operations.
Call : Mom , lecture ended please pick me up from university, ok son , I will pick you up …
SMS: So do you agree? - yes , then Deal Done! …
SMS: thank you I have made the payment.
Call: What happened? Its accident, ok let me call 15 or 1122 to inform them about the injuries and losses & this list goes on….! Continue Reading This Story
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Posted by: Reality Bites on November 1, 2008 at 12:28 AM
Telenor, the Norwegian trans-national telecom giant, entered Pakistani market in March 2005. Within just three years, Telenor have acquired 18.4 million subscribers (as of September 2008), becoming the third largest mobile operator in Pakistan, an outstanding feat given the country’ s fierce competitive environment.
Despite this growth, Telenor Pakistan network congestion issues are known to Telenor customers. They include different issues like, voice distortion, anonymous voices with connected call etc.
These issues were because of :
- More than ten traditional HLRs were in the current network, with some having a capacity of as low as 1 million. This arrangement caused a range of problems in network management and maintenance:
- Networking was highly complex due to the large number of low-capacity HLRs. The customer service system needed to connect to, and adapt to, all the HLRs on the network, and the resulting complexity significantly raised maintenance costs. Continue Reading This Story
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Posted by: Aamir Attaa on October 31, 2008 at 6:00 AM
There comes positive news from PTCL’s end that it has managed to increase its revenues by 8 percent and net profit by 6 percent during the first quarter of current fiscal year.
Waleed Arshad, President of PTCL, had a special press briefing last day, where he announced that in first quarter of the current fiscal 2008-09, total revenue of PTCL remained Rs 16.6 billion which increased by 8 percent as compared to corresponding period of last year.
Similarly total net profit of PTCL almost touching an increase of Rs 3.2 billion which is increased by 6 percent.
There came another killing news for ISPs that PTCL’s free internet service at night will remain applicable for unlimited period of time. While Green White recently reported that Pakistan Telecommunication Authority has decided to examine the validity of PTCL’s free dial-up service. Report said that PTA Chairman directed this on complaint of ISPs.
On other hands, Mr. Waleed Arshad said that PTCL’s free internet is not regularized while PTA was informed in advance.
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Posted by: Aamir Attaa on October 27, 2008 at 2:42 AM
We had covered this Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS) market review few months ago, however, changes take place in days now. As the energy crisis continue in Pakistan, in fact it has gone worse, people are again rushing towards UPS markets to get themselves electricity backups.
Thanks to winter, general people may not require UPS units as they did in hot summer, but businesses, students, and those who want to remain in tact with their electrical devices are in crucial situation due to unannounced and long run power failures.
Okay, I am covering only UPS market review, hopefully I will bring forward Generators’ market review as well in coming days, but lets focus on options and prices for UPS units in this article.
We saw two very significant things, one that UPS market is undergoing tremendous rush, and same is the case with prices. By the way, these prices went down in month of Ramadan (as there were no power outages then), but once again UPS businesses have gone high.
We noted that average cost of a Rs. 10,000 UPS has increased by almost 30 percent when compared to prices in May-June 2008. Retailers say this increment is due to the fact that manufacturers have increased prices of raw material on pretext of higher production cost due to higher imports of accessories.
A survey of retailers unveiled that UPS with a capacity of running two fans and two lights is hot item, and its sale has gone as high as 30 percent. It merits mentioning that this is least powered UPS available in the market, and is mostly used by small to mid sized shopkeepers and home users.
It merits mentioning here that there are two types of UPS available, imported ones and locally assembled. Retailers said that buyers prefer locally made UPS units for two reasons. 1 – They are inexpensive, 2 – Imported UPS units come with no warranty, hence more risk for buyers.
As the demand is increasing, there are more people getting involved in making of these local made UPS units. This retailer named, Hafiz Imran confirmed that there are tens of UPS manufacturing plants working in Rawalpindi. By the way, Daily Time lately reported that there are around 45 manufacturing units of UPS are working in the different parts of the Karachi only as cottage industry. The wholesalers have doubled their orders in order to meet the growing demand.
It was also reported that there comes lots bugs and after sale complains due to ordinary quality and unqualified technicians who make these UPS units in lesser time.
With UPS units, there come batteries, which are used with UPS units to keep your electrical devices alive – and scenario is not different of batteries as well, as prices have gone high here too.
So this is what the market has been undergoing, now check out these tips that you must consider before buying a UPS
Things to consider for Buying a UPS
- Try to put minimum load on UPS, that is don’t try to put all electrical devices on your UPS, instead make sure that only power critical devices are on UPS
- Once you have decided what items you will be running on UPS, calculate their power load. For this, don’t rely on UPS shops, instead ask for electrician in your colony and let him calculate the power load that you will be running on UPS. For instance, a computer with 17 inch monitor is likely to require 400 to 450 watts. Similarly, calculate your entire load and make sure what power do you require from this UPS.
- Go into main electrical markets of your city, instead of your corner electrical shop. Check around in couple of shops for the rates for the power your need. Let’s assume you need a UPS of 1000 Watts, then ask around what quotes you get.
- Please note that there are NO OFFICIAL RATES, so you will have to do little research to save you couple of thousand Rupees
- Please make sure that battery is nothing to do with your UPS. Your batteries will be responsible for backup time. So if you purchase a low ampere battery, it will give you lesser time and vice versa.
- Once your UPS is ready, make sure that it is giving output of exactly what you had asked for. For this purpose you can keep along your cousin or friend who knows a little about electrical meters, ask retailer (shopkeeper) to verify that this UPS is giving out proper voltages.
- If you are planning to use computer with this UPS, make sure that UPS unit supports it. For this direct the shopkeeper to make it computer complaint. (They make little configuration changes in your UPS, which prevents your Computer rebooting when electricity goes down.
Prices for UPS Units with Built in Dry Batteries
These UPS units come with built in Dry Batteries, and stabilizers. Means you get a once pack solution and simply take it home. But make sure that back-up duration for Buil in Dry Batteries’ UPS units is between 10 to 15 minutes only - Meaning that these are mainly for computers and for just saving your files and allowing you enough time to shut down your computer. (In case you need more backup time, then check for below given UPS prices that come without Batteries – and you can add up batteries to get more back up time)
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