Editing Economy of Pakistan (section)

==== Telecommunications ====
{{Main|Telecommunications in Pakistan}}
[[File:PTCL phone shop.jpg|thumb|[[Pakistan Telecommunication Company Ltd|PTCL]]'s One Stop Shop in Islamabad]]

After the deregulation of the [[telecommunications industry]], the sector has experienced exponential growth. [[Pakistan Telecommunication Company Ltd]] (PTCL) has emerged as a successful [[Forbes 2000]] conglomerate with over US$1 billion in sales in 2005. The mobile telephone market has expanded many-fold since 2003, reaching a subscriber base of 140 million users in July 2017, one of the highest mobile teledensities in the world.<ref name="pta.gov.pk">{{cite web|url=http://www.pta.gov.pk/index.php?Itemid=599 |title=Home |publisher=PTA |accessdate=4 March 2022}}</ref> Pakistan won the prestigious Government Leadership award of [[GSM Association]] in 2006.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.gsmworld.com/news/press_2006/press06_14.shtml |title=Pakistan Recognised by GSMA for Exceptional Work in Developing Mobile Communications|access-date=25 August 2006 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060904133739/http://www.gsmworld.com/news/press_2006/press06_14.shtml |archive-date=4 September 2006 }}<!-- GSM World. Retrieved on 16 February 2008 --></ref>

In Pakistan, the following are the top mobile phone operators:

# [[Jazz Pakistan]] (parent: [[VEON]], Netherlands)
# [[Ufone]] (parent: PTCL ([[Etisalat]]), Pakistan/UAE)
# [[Telenor]] (parent: [[Telenor]], Norway)
# [[Zong Pakistan|Zong]] (parent: [[China Mobile]], China)

By March 2009, Pakistan had 91 million mobile subscribers – 25 million more subscribers than reported in the same period in 2008. In addition to the 3.1 million fixed lines, as many as 2.4 million are using Wireless Local Loop connections. [[Sony Ericsson]], [[Nokia]] and [[Motorola]] along with [[Samsung Electronics|Samsung]] and [[LG]] remain the most popular brands among customers.<ref name="brecorder.com">{{cite web |url=http://www.brecorder.com/index.php?id=30899&currPageNo=1&query=&search=&term=&supDate= |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100611115413/http://www.brecorder.com/index.php?id=30899&currPageNo=1&query=&search=&term=&supDate= |url-status=dead |archive-date=11 June 2010 |title=Business Recorder [Pakistan's First Financial Daily&#93; |publisher=Brecorder.com |date=1 January 2004 |access-date=29 July 2010 }}</ref>

Since liberalisation, over the past four years from 2003 to 2007, the Pakistani telecom sector has attracted more than $9 billion in foreign investments.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007%5C06%5C23%5Cstory_23-6-2007_pg5_10 |title=Leading News Resource of Pakistan |publisher=Daily Times |access-date=29 July 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100611043335/http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007%5C06%5C23%5Cstory_23-6-2007_pg5_10 |archive-date=11 June 2010 }}</ref> During 2007–08, the Pakistani communication sector alone received $1.62 billion in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) – about 30% of the country's total foreign direct investment.

According to the [[PC World]], a total of 6.37 billion text messages were sent through Acision messaging systems across Asia Pacific over the 2008/2009 Christmas and New Year period.<ref>{{cite web |date=1 February 2009 |title=Guess Which County Texts the Heaviest |url=http://www.pcworld.com/article/158700/guess_which_county_texts_the_heaviest.html |work=PCWorld |access-date=8 April 2009 |archive-date=14 January 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120114053941/http://www.pcworld.com/article/158700/guess_which_county_texts_the_heaviest.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> Pakistan was amongst the top five rankers with one of the highest SMS traffic with 763 million messages.

On 14 August 2010, Pakistan became the first country in the world to experience EVDO's RevB 3G technology that offers maximum speeds of 9.3&nbsp;Mbit/s.

3G and 4G were simultaneously launched in Pakistan on 23 April 2014 through a [[spectrum auction|SMRA auction]]. Three out of five companies got a 3G licence i.e. [[Ufone]], [[Mobilink]] and [[Telenor]] while [[China Mobile]]'s [[Zong Pakistan|Zong]] got 3G as well as a 4G licence. Whereas the fifth company, [[Warid Pakistan]] did not participate in the auction procedure, but they launched 4G LTE services on their existing 2G 1800&nbsp;MHz spectrum due to Technology-neutral terms and became the world's first Telecom Company to transform directly from 2G to 4G. With that, Pakistan joined the 3G and 4G world.
In December 2017, 3G and 4G subscribers in Pakistan reached 46 million.<ref name="pta.gov.pk" />

After the successful implementation of the Device Identification Registration and Blocking System (DIRBS) in 2019 along with a comprehensive mobile manufacturing policy, it created a favourable environment for mobile device manufacturing in Pakistan. For the first time in the history of Pakistan, local mobile phone manufacturing exceeded the number of mobile phones that were imported in 2021. Mobile device manufacturing licences have been issued to 26 companies, including Samsung, Redmi, Realme, Nokia, [[Oppo phones|Oppo]], TECNO, [[Infinix]], Itel, Vgotel, and Q-Mobile.<ref>{{cite web|title=Local Mobile Manufacturing Surpasses Mobile Phone Import|url=https://www.pta.gov.pk/en/media-center/single-media/local-mobile-manufacturing-surpasses-mobile-phone-import-260821|url-status=live|access-date=14 September 2021|website=PTA|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210827065002/https://pta.gov.pk/en/media-center/single-media/local-mobile-manufacturing-surpasses-mobile-phone-import-260821 |archive-date=27 August 2021 }}</ref>

{| class="wikitable"
|+[[Pakistan Telecommunication Authority|PTA]] reports<ref>{{cite web |title=Annual Reports |url=https://www.pta.gov.pk/category/annual-reports-1432096911-2023-05-30 |archive-url= |archive-date= |access-date=2024-09-17 |publisher=PTA}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=telecom Indicators |url=https://www.pta.gov.pk/category/telecom-indicators |archive-url= |archive-date= |access-date=2024-09-17 |website=PTA}}</ref>
!Indicators
!2003
!2004
!2005
!2006
!2007
!2017
!2018
!2019
!2020
!2021
!2022
!2023
!2024
|-
|[[Teledensity]]
|4.31%
|6.25%
|11.9%
|26.24%
|44.06%
|72.4%
|74.1%
|75.1%
|76.3%
|81.7%
|84.6%
|81.4%
|80.5%
|-
|Telecom subscribers (millions)
|2.4
|5.0
|12.7
|34.5
|62.3
|139.8
|151.5
|165.0
|171.1
|186.8
|197.2
|193.5
|195.1
|-
| colspan="4" |[[Broadband]] subscribers (millions)
|0.03
|0.05
|44.8
|58.7
|71.5
|83.8
|102.7
|118.8
|127.6
|138.3
|-
| colspan="4" |Broadband penetration
|0.0%
|0.0%
|22.7%
|28.1%
|32.6%
|37.4%
|44.9%
|51.0%
|53.6%
|57.0%
|-
| colspan="6" |Cellular mobile data usage (petabytes)
|690
|1,262
|2,493
|4,510
| 6,853
|8,970
|10,850
|13,021
|-
| colspan="2" |Telecom revenues (billion PKR)
|118
|144
|195
|236
|528
|540
|604
|595
| 641
|717
|817
|955
|-
|Telecom contribution to exchequer (billion PKR)
|30.0
|38
|67
|77
|100
|161
|163
|111
|286
| 222
|329
|341
|335
|-
| colspan="3" |Total telecom investment (million US $)
|1,473
|1,731
|4,109
|1,133
|1,132
|882
|1,140
| 1,214
|1,657
|770
|765
|-
| colspan="6" |Mobile (CBU) imports (million units)
|18.11
|12.07
|16.28
|24.51
|10.26
|1.53
|1.58
|1.71
|-
| colspan="6" |Local assembly / manufacturing (million units)
|1.72
|5.2
|11.74
|13.05
|24.66
|21.94
|21.28
|31.38
|}