Telecom sector improves in FY 2016-17

ISLAMABAD: Telecom sector has shown positive growth during the first two quarters of FY 2016-17 as the total teledensity reached 72.36 percent at the end of March, 2017.

This was as compared to 70.81 percent at the end of last fiscal year due to growth in cellular mobile subscribers, according to survey report.

Revenues from telecom sector reached an estimated Rs. 234.9 billion during the first two quarters of Financial Year 2016-17, an official data said.

The overall revenues of telecom sector were likely to match or show growth in the full financial year compared with the last year.

According to available statistics, revenues of the telecom sector stood at Rs 454.4 billion in the full financial year of 2015-16. Doubling the figures to compare on a yearly basis, the revenues of the telecom sector will be settled at Rs 469.8 billion

for 2016-17, which is 3.3 percent or Rs 15.4 billion higher than previous year.

However, it seems growth in revenues of telecom sector can be considered an ambitious target. Revenues are likely to either match the level of previous year or record slight growth in the current financial year 2016-17.

Economic Survey of Pakistan data said that the commercial launch of 3G and 4G LTE services has opened new opportunities for revenue generation for the mobile operators.

Availability of 3G and 4G services has enabled development of new applications and data based services, and the people of Pakistan are quickly adapting to these new technologies and services.