Number of cell phone customers surpasses fixed line users in Pakistan

The number of cell phone users in the country has surpassed the number of fixed line telephone customers in just over a decade of operations, helping the country to achieve a cellular tele-density rate of over four while tele-density rate of fixed telephones stands at three percent.

According to latest figures compiled by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), the number of cell phone subscribers stands at 6.13 million against 4.46 million users of fixed line telephony, while penetration of both services stands at 4.12 and 3 per 100 inhabitants, respectively.

In fixed line telephony, the state-owned Pakistan Telecom-munication Company Limited (PTCL) still controls a 100 percent market share but on cellular services three foreign backed and a state-run company share over 4 million subscribers. According to the data, Mobilink leads the market share with 3.805 million subscribers while Ufone has 1.3 million subscribers followed by Instaphone with 0.544 million and Paktel with 0.488 million subscribers…