In a report published by PTA, on SMS traffic trends in local and global markets, says that a total of 151.6385 billion text messages were exchanged by Pakistani cellular subscribers in fiscal year 2009-10, generating a revenue of Rs. 40.76 billion.

This figure translates into 1532 SMS per subscriber in an year or 128 SMS per subscriber in one month. Average price of one SMS is said to be at 27 paisas.

Report says that four billion mobile subscribers use SMS service around the world, who sent five trillion messages in 2009 i.e. approximately 105 sms per person per month.

Pakistan is ranked Number four for average number of SMS sent per subscriber in a month.

By 2013 the volume of messages will double to 10 trillion, according to Portio Research. That is, the SMS traffic will grow double in coming four years. The forward prediction can be seen in following figure:

According to ITU, SMS traffic is generating an estimated revenue of USD 812,000 every minute (or around USD 14,000 every second) for the cellular companies from 5.3Billion users.

In 2009, SMS revenue accounted for 12% of China’s largest mobile operator’s total revenue. The Philippines and the United States combined accounted for 35% of all SMS sent in 2009.

SMS Traffic in Recent Years:

In Pakistan, SMS traffic over past few years is reported as following:

* 2006 PK Messaging: Approximately 8.7 Billion messages
* 2007 PK Messaging: Approximately 22.6 Billion messages
* 2008 PK Messaging: Approximately 61 Billion messages
* 2009 PK Messaging: Approximately 151.7 Billion messages

Report says that SMS traffic in Pakistan was exchanged at an average rate of 27 Paisa (Rs. 027) per SMS in the year 2009.

Report said that 80 percent of SMS traffic utilized SMS bundles offered by cellular companies, while rest of 20 percent SMS were sent using flat rate of Rs.1/sms.

An average bundled package of 700-SMS/ Month is approximately for Rs. 60. According to these two rates, the revenue for SMS-traffic is calculated to be approximately 40.76 Billion.

Operator Wise Details:

Zong and Mobilink has more outgoing traffic than the incoming traffic. Ufone has the highest SMS traffic on the network. The out and incoming traffic of Mobilink is almost balanced in each month respectively. Telenor has quite high incoming than its outgoing.

Following is the dissection of the traffic of all the operators network.

According to Mobilink, it has highest difference in exchange of traffic with Ufone. Incoming traffic from Ufone is more than the sent traffic. Similarly its receiving more SMS messages from Zong than the sent messages. Where as its sending more messages to Telenor and Warid.

Ufone SMS traffic is the highest landing traffic at the Telenor network. Zong is also sending more traffic to Telenor than is receiving from it. It is interesting to note here that he incoming traffic to telenor from all other networks, except warid, is more than its outgoing to all the networks.

Zong is sending more SMS to all the operators than receiving The difference in exchange of traffic is highest with Warid, followed by Mobilink then Telenor and Ufone.

*Download Complete Report – Report by ProPakistani.PK

The Secretary Cabinet Division, Mr. Abdur Rauf Chaudhry has said that 3G services would hopefully be available to the Pakistan mobile users by the end of 2011, while it is expected that the Policy for auction of 3G services licenses would soon be presented to the government and Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) for discussion and approval.

He said this while speaking at a seminar organized by Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) in collaborat0ion with Qualcomm and Central Asian Cellular Forum (CACF) at Islamabad on 3G mobile services.

The theme was “Opportunities for All: Development of 3G Devices in Pakistan”.

Chairman PTA, Dr. Mohammed Yaseen, moderated the ceremony. Delegates from Board of Investment, Pakistan Engineering Council, Ministry of IT, Representatives from Qualcomm, IT & telecom Industry experts, CEOs of telecom companies, International Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), Local Investors, Mobile Distributors, Academia and media representatives attended the seminar. The Secretary said that the local manufacturing of 3G handsets is very important and govt would consider the recommendations given by the Industry during the seminar.

On this occasion, Chairman PTA, Dr. Mohammed Yaseen said that by the end of this quarter we will be able to roll out plans for 3G services once the Policy is approved by the Government. He said that handset manufacturing is a vital segment of mobile Eco System, by the end of 2011, there will be an estimated sales volume of 300 million 3G mobile handset around the globe. Pakistan offers an excellent opportunity for investment in 3G handset manufacturing with availability of skilled manpower and upward growth of mobile market. He said that creation of a favorable climate for high value added, low cost R&D, production and marketing will certainly instigate investment window in the country.

During the seminar Chairman PTA also delivered a comprehensive presentation to highlight the worldwide practices regarding 3G manufacturing. He presented various investment incentives offered in various countries. Chairman also highlighted the present 3G handset market in Pakistan with necessary future roadmap to promote handset manufacturing industry in the country.

Mr. Raheel Kamal, Mr. Sanjeet Pandit and Mr. Hani Yassin of Qualcomm also made presentations highlighting magnitude and importance of 3G Manufacturing in Pakistan. During the seminar speakers of International fame focused on the pre-requisites for handset manufacturing proliferation such as incentives, mutual coordination, infrastructure development and technology research.

Mobile phone has become the biggest platform available today with almost 5 billion wireless subscribers, of which there are more than 1 billion 3G subscribers in the world. The 3G number is expected to grow to 2.8 billion by 2014. With upcoming 3G auction in Pakistan and network rollouts in the near future, the industry would be benefited from the data growth and exciting applications and services on the 3G networks. Various full-featured mobile operating systems such as Android, Windows, Java, Brew MP, etc., continue to drive the proliferation of mass-market Smartphones offering thousands of applications, services and mobile content.

Zong has become the fastest growing network of Pakistan as it has recorded 500 percent growth in terms of number of cell sites during the last three years. The Company now has 5,612 cell sites out of which a massive 4,500 have been set up since 2007.

In April 2008, Zong joined the Telecom industry in Pakistan as the smallest operator. It took ZONG two years and the fastest rollout in the history of the industry to setup a network which its competitors had taken more than a decade to set up. ZONG now covers 10,000 cities, towns and villages across Pakistan.

“It has been more than 2 years since the launch of ZONG during which we have made monumental progress,” said Salman Wassay, Head of Marketing, ZONG. “In all areas of our operations, we have upped the ante and set new benchmarks for the industry,” added Wassay.

ZONG’s reach now stretches from the mountain tops of Ishkoman in Gilgit-Baltistan to the rocky plains of Buleda in Balochistan to the midst of mega cities. It has chosen to work with some of the top companies like Ericsson, Huawei, Alcatel Lucent and ZTE to provide top-of-the-line infrastructure for its services.

ZONG has so far invested US $1.66 billion in Pakistan and has plans to further invest $300 million in 2010 which is the largest investment by any telecom operator in the current year. The Company continues to invest heavily in the construction of GSM networks, support systems and transmission facilities, and for the development of new technologies and new businesses. China Mobile – the parent company of ZONG – pursues continuous innovation in the provision of services, business, technology and management and has sustained a leadership position in the telecom industry.

via=ProPakistani.PK

ZONG introduces its latest innovative campaign – Bijli Offer. With Bijli Offer, all new Zong prepaid customers get automatic daily lucky draw entries to win hundreds of UPS, generators, rechargeable fans and rechargeable lights every day. That’s the need of the hour and Zong felt it.

After Telenor and Zong, now Ufone is also offering free incoming MMS, which means Ufone customers can now receive MMS without any charge.

Earlier, Ufone was charging same tariff for both sending and receiving MMS.

Additionally, like before, you can send Multimedia Messages to Ufone numbers via email. Process is very simple, just attach images, songs, or anything with your email and send to ufone_number@ufonemms.com, for instance:  03335555xxx@ufonemms.com and that’s it.

Note: Make sure attachment size is considerable, 100 KB or less is good.

Tip: You can use email to MMS service to transfer files to friends n family, files of any type, even Word documents. While receiving those files (in MMS), you can save them in phone memory and then transfer to your computer for further use.

Please note that this offer has not been announced on Ufone’s website as of now.

Thanks to Sufiyan Shakil for notifying us about this.

MMS Service Comparison

• Telenor: Users can send MMS to Emails, Cannot receive Email to MMS, however MMS receiving is totally free. Zong:
• Zong: Incoming MMS are free but Zong has not started Email to MMS yet, Zong has even disabled MMS to Email to force its customers to use alternate service Zong one, which is not free.
• Ufone: Users can send MMS to Email, Email to MMS, MMS receiving is free.
• Warid: MMS receiving is not free, in some prepaid SMS packages MMS receiving is free but customer is charged from the SMS package units. Email to MMS is not available.
• Mobilink: MMS receiving is free – but GPRS charges apply if MMS size increases 7 KB.

via=’ProPakistani.PK‘