Telenor Pakistan to Expand from Telecom Business

In an interview with the Express Tribune, the executive vice-president of the Telenor Group, Rolv-Erik Spilling stated that Pakistan is a market of over 30 million customers and plays a vital role in our international spectrum of business. He stated that the company wishes to interact with the population at a personal level, providing them local content and that they would prefer rather than bombarding them with material and content from abroad.

He also showed positivity and enthusiasm about 3G auction and stated that Telenor is certainly going to be a part of it and it is important to get the right spectrum to deliver good enough services. Spilling showed a distress about energy crisis in Pakistan and according to him Telenor is planning to move toward technology which consumes less energy and is environment-friendly.
In an attempt to diversify in the Pakistani market, Telenor Digital Services is investing in sectors other than telecommunications like financial services, business software services, machine-to-machine services, ecommerce services and consumer-oriented content services. Though the internet penetration is not that high in the country, it will not be the case in the future.

Telenor also plans to launch another investment initiative that would involve the company participating in smartphone manufacture to bring innovation and accessibility to the people of the region. In a vision for bringing in something new, Telenor is of the opinion that the penetration of cheap smartphones in the market can be utilized very effectively if someone like us is willing to risk it. If an ecosystem is brought in Pakistan that would allow the customer to obtain a loan to buy a smartphone, have it insured, and then have access to local music or content and be able to make payments for it through banking solutions, then the market is mature enough to accept it, rather revere it.

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