ISLAMABAD: Jazz leads the 4G landscape in the country with a 38 percent market share and 14,400 sites, serving over 43 million and enabling fellow citizens to access health, education, finance, and other life-improving services.
This was stated by Kazim Mujtaba, chief commercial officer at Jazz, while talking to the media here on Monday.
Referring to data released by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, Kazim highlighted that the average cellular subscriber in Pakistan now utilizes over 8 GB of mobile data per month—a substantial increase from just 2 GBs in 2018—attributed to a $4 billion investment by cellular operators, with the majority share being contributed by Jazz.
“We are continuously investing in expanding the outreach and capacity of our 4G network, mainly in semi-urban and rural areas, to empower the underserved, especially women, to benefit from the digital services portfolio we offer. Despite a challenging macroeconomic environment, Jazz invested Rs13.8 billion in the first half of 2023, taking its overall investment in Pakistan to over $10.5 billion,” Kazmi added.
Earlier this year, Jazz earned the top place in overall coverage in Open signal’s Coverage Experience Report, and it also retained the top spot as the fastest broadband provider in Pakistan, according to the Ookla Market Report for Q1 2023.
He further emphasised Jazz’s commitment to expanding the benefits of mobile broadband, particularly among low-income segments in Pakistan.
“While handset affordability remains a key barrier to mobile broadband adoption, particularly for women and rural populations, Jazz took the lead as the first local mobile operator to offer Jazz Digit 4G smart feature phones three years back. This initiative was later recognized as a successful global rollout by the organization representing mobile network operators, GSMA,” Kazim informed.
Discussing the company’s digital focus, Kazim stated that Jazz had evolved from a telecom operator to a digital powerhouse, serving as a digital lifestyle partner for 128 million mobile broadband users in Pakistan.
This approach has led to Jazz expanding its product and service portfolio, which now includes fintech, cloud services, OTT/streaming platforms, music apps, chat applications, travel services, sports platforms, and learning applications.
Responding to a question regarding Jazz keeping consistent revenue growth despite challenges, Kazim revealed that the company had captured at least an additional one percent of revenue market share every year.
He attributed this success to Jazz’s ability to read the pulse of its customers and proactively cater to their changing digital needs. “Customer-centricity is a core value at Jazz, and it’s only by anticipating their future needs and pre-emptively designing solutions around them that keeps us relevant and afloat in a very challenging market,” Kazim added.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023