ISLAMABAD ( BMZ REPORT )
Cellular data consumption — after the auction of 3G/4G spectrum — is witnessing an exponential growth in Pakistan, revealed Dr. Ismail Shah, Chairman PTA, during his keynotes at recently held road-show organized by Nokia Networks.
Dr. Ismail Shah revealed that Pakistani mobile phone users consumed a total of 6,840 tera-bytes (TBs) of data during December 2014, up from just 1,243 tera-bytes (TBs) during January 2014 showing almost 600% growth in data usage.
Dr. Shah said that real growth, as one would expect, started after the auction of 3G/4G auction, however, the steep upward curve is beyond industry’s expectation.
Interestingly, one third of total mobile data is still consumed by 2G users, showing that Pakistani market poses huge potential for 3G and 4G operators in the country.
Currently only a handful of Pakistani cities are covered by 3G operators and a huge rural market is still untapped. Not to be mentioned, this rural market is going to use 3G as its primary source of high-speed internet (as fixed broadband is usually not available to them) and thus offering further growth opportunities in data consumption.