ISLAMABAD, Jun 11: Telecom industry has seen a dramatic increase in mobile broadband as penetration over the past five years as mobile broadband subscribers reach 55 billion with teledensity of 27.01 on the other hand Basic Telephony subscriber 3 Million with 1.30 % Teledensity.

The telecom sector is one of the fastest growing segments of Pakistan’s economy as the number of 3G and 4G users in the country has reached 54.66 million by end of April 2018, showing a reasonable growth with each passing month.

Mobile broadband users remain significantly higher than fixed broadband user to the dominance of the mobile platform in the country.

Statistics issued by Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) have showed that number of mobile phone users reached 150 million by April 2018, as compared to 145.99 million by end of January 2018.

Jazz's total count for 3G users stood at 14.92 million by April 2018, as compared to 14.54 million by January 2018. Jazz 4G user numbers jumped from 2,238,018 by January 2018 to 3,669,794 by April 2018.

Zong 3G subscribers decreased to 9,340,305 million by April 2018, from 9,089 million in January 2018, while number of 4G users jumped from 5,0724,43 by January end to 6.779,753 by April 2018.

The number of 3G users of Telenor increased from 10.756 million in January 2018 to 10.933,124  million by April 2018. The number of 4G users jumped from 1,883,616 in January 2018 to 2,736,597 by April 2018.

Ufone added 0.149 million 3G users on its network during month of February as total reached to 6,282,913 by end of April 2018 against 5.869 million in January 2018.

Tele-density for cellular mobile reached 74.21 per cent and broadband subscribers reached 54,663,495 by April 2018 – as compared to 51,767,141 by January 2018.

Despite the efforts of the government to stimulate growth in the internet segment of the telecommunications market, for a long period it has remained a fairly sluggish component of Pakistan’s overall telecoms sector.

Moderate growth is predicted over the next five years as the penetration of mobile broadband is predicted to continue to grow strongly.

The declining number of fixed lines in Pakistan is restricting more widespread development of fixed broadband. Over the next five years to 2022 low to moderate growth is expected from a small base.

Talking to APP official of ministry said, one of the main reasons of slow growth of fixed broadband is that, 4G network rollouts continue across the country. By 2017 over 30% of Pakistan population was covered by a 4G network.

Pakistan has seen a dramatic increase in mobile broadband penetration over the past five years with market penetration increasing from below 1% in 2012 to 24% in 2017, he added. (APP)