3G/4G Subscribers in Pakistan Reaches 66.14 Million

The number of 3G and 4G users in Pakistan reached 66.14 million by end March 2019, said Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA). The number of mobile phone users in Pakistan reached 159.024 million by end-March compared to 156.92 million by end of February, which registered an increase of 2.104 million during the period under review.

Jazz’s total count for 3G users stood at 13.622 million by end-March compared to 13.714 million by end February, registering a decrease of 0.0092 million. Jazz 4G user numbers jumped from 8.144 million by end February to 8.774 million by end-March.

3G/4G Subscribers in Pakistan

Zong 3G subscribers increased from 8.738 million by end February to 8.764 million by end-March while the number of 4G users jumped from 11.026 million by end February to 11.600 million by end March 2019.

The number of 3G users of Telenor network decreased from 8.851 million by end February to 8.764 million by end-March 2019 i.e. registering 0.087 million. The number of 4G users jumped from 5.569 million by end February to 5.905 million by end-March.

Ufone 3G users decreased from 8.162 million by end February to 7.846 million by end-March registering a decline of 0.316 million. Teledensity for cellular mobile increased from 76.3 percent by end February to 77.17 percent by end-March and broadband subscribers reached 68244373 by end-March compared to 66704731 by end February.

PTA received 13685 complaints from telecom consumers against different telecom operators including (cellular operators, PTCL, LDIs, WLL operators and ISPs) as of March 2019. According to PTA data Jazz (Mobilink + Warid) leads the chart with 3881 complaints and Telenor stands at the second position as the most complained telecom operator with 2738 complaints. PTA said that it was able to get 13676 complaints resolved i.e. 99.93 percent.

Cellular mobile subscribers constitute a major part of the overall telecom subscriber base, therefore, a maximum number of complaints belong to this segment. A total number of complaints against CMOs by February stood at 10684.

In terms of the segregation of complaints on operator basis, a total of 3881 complaints were received against Jazz which is 36.32% of the total CMO related complaints. Telenor, which has the second largest number of consumers, was also second with 2738 i.e. 25.62 percent complaints were received against it. Zong stood third with 2396 complaints i.e. 22.42 percent of total complaints.

Ufone had 1669 complaints against its various services which make up 15.62 percent of the total CMO related complaints. PTA also received 1286 complaints against basic telephony where 1281 were addressed during March 2019. Further 1690 complaints were received against ISPs where 1686 were addressed.