Posted by: Aamir Attaa on June 20, 2008 at 12:07 PM
Cellular-News, quoting IDC India, has reported that Indian Handset market has seen 29 percent year-on-year growth, as total of almost 85 million phones were shipped into India from April 2007 to April 2008 in comparison with 66 Million handsets in same period previous year. In only first quarter, Indians shipped 22 million mobile phone units from overseas markets.
Overall, Nokia retained the top spot with a market share of 52.8%, followed by LG at 10.2%, and Samsung at 8.3% in terms of units shipped during the quarter ended March 31, 2008.
Keeping in view the current situation, Korean Handset manufacture, LG is planning to further invest in its Indian plant to increase its handset production to not only meet the local market requirements but also to serve European and Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) markets.
It maybe recalled that LG has manufacturing plant in India, China, Brazil and Mexico. The Indian factory sits near Pune, Maharashtra. Last year, LG sold about 80.5 million handsets and we are looking to sell more than 100 million units by the end of this year.
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Posted by: Aamir Attaa on June 20, 2008 at 11:44 AM
Possibly yes, don’t get amazed, as Japan’s NTT DoCoMo Inc., is looking for overseas investment once again. DoCoMo is not going to come directly into scene in Pakistan, but possibly through Etisalat controlled Ufone , as they announced some serious partnership talks with Middle East’s telecom carriers including Etisalat, Qatar Telecom and Saudi Telecom, reported Bloomberg.
As we know well that Japan’s telecom market has reached its bread limit, hence operators are looking for overseas markets, specifically the developing ones like Middle East and Africa. Similarly, DoCoMo is eying such markets through stakes in major telecom operators of the region that includes Etisalat, in order to reach in Africa, Middle East and Pakistan.
Along with recent minority stakes acquisition in Bangladesh, DoCoMo is present in Philippines and South Korea.
However, it merits mentioning that all overseas investments for DoCoMo didn’t turn fruitful, as they had to loose US$3.2 billion in only 3 years for 16 percent stakes in AT&T Wireless, that they had bought for US$ 9.8 billion in January 2001, and sold them to Cingular in 2004 for US$ 6.6 billion
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Posted by: Aamir Attaa on June 17, 2008 at 5:03 AM
I was amazed by this news, published in Business Recorder, which says that Warid Teleom is going to invest US 5 Billion Dollars to improve its services in the country. First thing that came into my mind was that this must be a typo or the reporter mistranslated the actual amount of Warid’s upcoming investments. We know that Warid, just before its third anniversary, announced the investment plans of US 1 billion dollars.
Though, we don’t have any other evidence of this much investment plans reported by another paper, still let’s consider the possibilities of 5 billion dollars coming into country in one go, is it really possible?
News Paper, in the same news item citing Marwan Zawaydeh, Group Chief Technical Office of Warid Telecom International, and CEO of Warid Pakistan, said that Tele-density in the country is somewhere around 40 percent instead of 55 percent (PTA claims that 55 out of every 100 people have mobile phones in Pakistan); hence more room for additional subscribers to be get tuned with cellular services.
The interview given by CEO Warid states another contradictory thing when CEO said that Warid Telecom focused more on quality and services, due to which Telenor took the lead, which reached under-served, rural and far flung areas of the country; he said that Warid left behind in number of subscribers but not in quality of services…and on other hands they are going to invest 5 billion US dollars to enhance services? Instead of new rollout??? I don’t have any idea of what Warid’s plan is or this reporter needs some schooling.
On another occasion, we expressed hard feeling for the reporter who claimed that China Mobile is going to invest 7 million dollar, initially we thought that this was mistyped, however, there came no clarification from the company.
Through some friends, i came to know that Warid’s parent ground Abu Dhabi Group is going to start some new businesses, like Advertising Agencies, and others; maybe they are counted in these 5 billion too…But we remember that they rolled out their whole business in Bangladesh in few hundred million dolors. Same was the case in Congo and Pakistan… another possibility can be the emergence of 3G roll out… but i am not sure about anything!
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Posted by: Aamir Attaa on May 22, 2008 at 7:39 AM
Waird Telecom has decided to aggressively start its network rollout throughout the country. For the purpose, Warid has announced to invest US 1 billion dollars till end 2009. In an interview with Romail Kenneth of ‘Daily Times’, Marwan Zawaydeh, CEO Warid Telecom has confirmed this upcoming investment. Along with he said that Warid Telecom is well positioned to fight for second place in Pakistan Cellular Market.
It merits mentioning here that Warid is currently at forth slot with 14.76 Million customers, almost 2.47 million customers behind Telenor, the 3rd largest cellular company of Pakistan(As of April 2008).
This upcoming investment will be mainly utilized to expand the network reach throughout the country. With this announced investment Warid Telecom’s total investment in the sector will reach 2.5 Billion US dollars.
Warid’s coverage spans in 250 cities in Pakistan, however they are quite strict in adding new cities by taking their coverage to only those areas which have fully functional sales and franchise network.
It maybe recalled that Warid Telecom has sold its 30 percent shares valuing US 758 Million dollars to Singtel of Singapore to support its expanding network requirements. Before that Warid had sealed a loan agreement deal of US 500 Million dollars with Standard Chartered Bank and ABN Amro Bank in November 2006.
Another event happened today, which I want to integrate in the post is about the re-launch of Company’s new logo “Life ka Network” in Lahore. Warid’s CEO re-launched the Logo which looks like backing the idea of connecting every corner of Pakistan through its network.
Zawaydeh gave a detailed presentation on company’s achievements on completion of three-year operation in Pakistan and Mr. Thomas Yeo highlighted the future plans of the company.
I am also going to cover Warid’s third anniversary on May 23rd 2008 with stats and company achievements in its three years life…
Stay tuned…
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Posted by: Aamir Attaa on May 18, 2008 at 6:00 AM
With respect to World Telecom Day, in this post i am going to narrate few indicatros, to summarize Telecom sector in Pakistan.
Enormous growth in Telecom sector has enabled Pakistani customers to get equipped with fastest means of communications; and it has turned things into reality which were even beyond imaginations only few years ago.
Key indicators/facts of Pakistan Telecom Sector that I think should be mentioned
1. Mobile Phone reaches more than 90 percent of Pakistani Population
2. Mobile Phone connections in the country hit 85 million mark
3. Tele-density reaches 57.43 percent
4. 2 million cellular customers are added every month
5. 4 Billion text messages are exchanged daily at cheapest possible ratesWorld Telecom Day
6. Internet users through out the country reach 4.5 million mark
7. Late night and Friend and Family calls are made as low as 2.5 Rs per hour
8. GPRS enabled 55 percent Pakistanis to remotely access internet anywhere in Pakistan
9. Broadband internet users have hit one hundred and thirty thousand limit
10. WiMAX internet users reaches 15,000 mark
11. Broadband rates slipped from 60,000 per month for I MB link to only 2,000 per month
12. More than 84,000 directly and more than five hundred thousands indirectly jobs were created through telecom sector
13. IT imports worth 147 million dollars annually
14. Telecom imports reach $ 1.64 billion (July 2007 to March 2008) whichh is almost same when compared to same period, previous year
15. Mobile Phnoes import reach $ 581.7 Million (July 2007 to March 2008) against $ 661.5 Million during the same period last year.
16. In March 2008 only the Mobile Phone imports hit $ 74.4 Million mark, registering a decrease of 23.19 percent when compared to March 2007.
17. More than 10 billion Dollars FDI came in Telecom Sector, with 2 Billion dollars in last year only
18. Telecom Sector shares 3.7 percent of GDP
Telecom Sector also shares some unpleasant things as well, which are
1. Cellular market ruined Local Loop (Land Line) and Wireless Local Loop market
2. Regulator was unable to conduct Quality of Service survey, and waved for cellular companies that have flaws in their services
3. 20 Million illegal and un-identified SIMs circulating in market
4. Increment in SPAM text messaging and phone calls
5. Over charging
6. Low Average Revenue Per User (ARPU)
7. Low ROI (Return on investment) for small to mid sized telecom business
8. CED and GST collection from telecom sector is persistent for last 2 years at Rs. 35 billion, despite of millions of additional telecom users
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