STAFF REPORT IBD: Pakistan has crossed the figure of 125 million mobile phone users, which is a new high in the history of the country.
According to the statistics of Pakistans Telecommunication Authority (PTA) for the month of May 2013, the country has 125,012,860 mobile subscribers, pushing the nation up to an all-time high of 70 per cent mobile penetration. But that represents fairly slow growth from the 100 million milestone back in October 2010.
The five mobile telcos in Pakistan added around 2.5 million subscribers during April and May 2013.
The data shows that Telenor and Zong added the most subscribers during that time, while Mobilink is still the nations leading service provider with 36.75 million subscribers and Telenor is second with 31.7 million.
The repeated delay in Pakistans 3G auction is making the whole auction process very controversial especially in the wake of the recent increase in taxes and other restrictions for this sector.
This situation has got so grave that Telenor company has recently even threatened to pull out of the 3G auction put serious doubts on the companys next installment of $1 billion investment in the industry.