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Wireless Phones shipped to Pakistan |
Hop-on Wireless Inc. said it has shipped an initial order of its tri-band
(900/1800/1900 MHz) HOP1806 GSM handsets to a distributor in Karachi,
Pakistan. The compact handset, which features a colored screen, short message
service messaging, predictive text input, a 200 entry phone book, speed
dialing, buzzer and vibration call alerts, and a rechargeable lithium ion
battery, retails for $140 on Hop-on’s Web site. “Pakistan is a country with approximately half the population of the
United States in an area slightly less than twice the size of California,”
said Dan Gannon, chief executive officer of Hop-on. Low-cost Handsets “With its low wireless penetration rate, there is potentially a
significant opportunity to sell low-cost handsets in Pakistan, and we look
forward to working with this customer to serve the Pakistani market.” Pakistan’s pent-up wireless demand is beginning to be met with increasing
competition and lower prices in the market. Love for Mobiles Tens of thousands of Pakistanis endured hours of stifling heat this week
to accept an offer of free mobile phone connections, a sign of the pent-up
demand in a country where cell phone usage has remained low. But that may soon change. While only about 4.5 million of Pakistan's 150
million people currently have mobile phones, industry executives say fierce
competition and cheaper technologies are forcing prices down to eye-catching
levels. From Saturday to Tuesday, customers thronged state-owned Ufone company
offices across the country in response to an offer to save 1,000 rupees
($17) in connection charges. "It does not sound too much, but it is a saving of a thousand rupees,"
said Khisar Ali Shah, a resident in the Pakistani capital Islamabad. "I am
here because the connection is free." Of the Ufone 'Venture' Ufone, a wholly owned subsidiary of state-run Pakistan Telecommunication
Company Ltd with over one million customers, is one of Pakistan's four
cellular mobile companies. Mobilink, the Market Leader Mobilink, the market leader run by Egypt-based regional telephone
operator Orascom Telecom, says it is hoping to increase its customer base to
four million by 2005 from slightly above three million at present. The two other mobile operators are Paktel and Instaphone, both owned by a
private Pakistani group in partnership with Sweden's Millicom International
Cellular. A Cellular War "It is the beginning of a war," said Fauzan Abdullah, an analyst with
KASB Securities in Karachi, describing the marketing effort. As a crowd swelled outside his offices Tuesday, Ufone president and chief
executive Babur Khan was clearly pleased with the overwhelming response to
the company's promotion. "We are strictly monitoring the outflow of number of clients so that we
maintain our quality parameters. We are absolutely delighted," he told
Reuters. "I can tell you that all our estimates (of expected respondents) so
far have proven to be wrong. We are counting the numbers and it will take
about a week for us to come up with a final figure," Khan said. Perspective The first mobile phone users in Pakistan were foreigners and the rich who
could afford to buy a handset for $500 and pay half that much again to get
it connected nearly 15 years ago. But a paradigm shift in consumer
perceptions has suddenly taken place. "It is good for my business," explained Amjad Ali, a carpenter who used
to think owning a mobile phone was a status symbol but now sees it as an
essential tool. Optimism Awais Ahmad Khan Leghari, Minister for Information Technology and
Telecommunications expects the sector to attract about $1.5 billion in
investment over the next year and he expects mobile phone penetration rates
of 10-15 percent within about three years. Telecom growth is also very fast in regional rival India where industry
watchers say the mobile phone subscriber base is growing by between 3-4
percent each month. "The Cellular.operators will have to come up with new packages, not just
because of this overwhelming response to Unfone but the competition coming
up in the future," said Anwar Ahmed Khan, an analyst with Capital One
Equities Ltd. New Companies Norwegian telecoms firm Telenor has announced it plans to invest $1
billion over five to seven years for a new network in Pakistan. The second new firm is Al-Warid, a Pakistan-led and Dubai-backed group.
Each will have to invest $300-$400 million on networks, with capacities of
three to four million customers. "The stakes are very high. No one wants to lose the game. It is a numbers
game, like who has how many subscribers. After all, they are all offering
the same thing," said Abdullah. Cell Phone Tariff to Fall As reported in Wednesday edition of 'Pakistan Times', hundreds of
thousands of cell phone users in the country stood in long queues to lay
their hands on free pre-paid connections offered by Ufone from Aug 14 to Aug
16, which may affect its' technical services, if instant steps are eschewed
to meet the requsite hefty load of the updated connections. The Cellular Phone Users At present, there are over 5.5 million cell phone users in Pakistan. A
senior official of Ufone, a subsidiary of the Pakistan Telecommunication
Company, said free pre-paid connections were available at 25 outlets in the
city. "We are still in the process of counting the number of applications
received. Our stocks were snapped up in three days, starting from Aug 14.
The offer was available in nine cities of the country," he said. 'Pakistan Times' understands that Ufone had given over 400,000 free
pre-paid connections to cell phone users on Aug 14 and Aug 15. Compulsions Competition has forced the cell phone companies to lower their tariff and
other charges. Since two new companies are likely to come into operation
over the next six months, cell phone tariffs will come down further.. The cell phone companies had realized that the cost of acquisition of
subscribers would go up in the future. "They are trying to acquire as many
subscribers as possible before the new companies enter the
telecommunications market," sources say.