Recently a report of GSMA has been published with the title of 'The Mobile Economy Asia Pacific 2021' that described the current status of 5G in the region. GSMA represents the interest of almost 750 smartphone companies, and it has claimed that Pakistan will have a setback in smartphone usage and 5G coverage by 2025. We cannot ignore the Minister for Information, Technology, and Telecommunication, Syed Aimen ul Haq's statement. He says that we have started taking measures to help the country surpass this prediction made by GSMA. According to the recent report, South Korea was the first country that rolled out 5G in 2018, and then by the year 2019, Australia, Maldives, and New Zealand also rolled out 5G. The report further clears the state of 5G in 2020 and 2021. The rollout of 5G in 2020 was by Guam, Japan, Laos, Northern Mariana Islands, Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand, whereas Indonesia, Vietnam, and Malaysia achieved it in 2021.
Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Samoa are expected to launch 5G by the year 2023. Whereas Brunei Darussalam, India Combida are expected to launch 5G in 2022. The report further explains that by 2025, more than 80% of connections in the Asia Pacific will be done by smartphones, from 68% in 2020.
According to the report that targeted 12 countries, Pakistan was on the ending edge, and there is a prediction that it will not be able to meet the benchmark of 80%. "However, the results will be different in coming 18 months mainly because of three factors which include IT and telecom infrastructure development under the Universal Service Fund (USF) projects and the outcome of upcoming spectrum auction which will expand IT and telecom services to a large un-served population," Mr. Haq said.
"This is reflected by decisions in 2021 to initiate mobile-sector tax reforms and introduce right-of-way policies for infrastructure deployments," the report notes. "Efficient and affordable ICT infrastructure and services allow citizens to participate in the digital economy, with significant impact in the areas of financial inclusion, poverty reduction, and improved health," the report said.
According to the report, for the next four years, 74% of citizens of Pakistan will use smartphones from 51%. Whereas if we talk about Bangladesh, it is likely to be 62% against 41% in 2020. On the other hand, by 2025, 42% of Pakistanis will be broadband users against 27% in 2020, while 10% will have telecom coverage.
GSMA further makes it clear that the market of Pakistan has quite an effective potential. Still, there are some reasons because of which Pakistan will face a setback, such as current levels of mobile internal adoption, smartphone take-up, and usage of digital services that are quite behind compared to the markets of other countries.
Some of the false and uncertain policies have caused damage to the growth of digital development and the growth of the online economy in Pakistan. The IT minister said 'the estimates in the GSMA report have been made based on ground realities in 2020.'
The GSMA report further states that the mobile industry's contribution will be around 24 billion dollars adding to 6.6% to the GDP of Pakistan. The GSMA says that such effective efforts will help the economy of Pakistan to take a boost and get more strengthened. The report also appreciated and acknowledged the efforts of Pakistan in the spread of information, technology, and telecommunications all across the country. According to the minister, local manufacturing of smartphones will ensure the availability of smartphones at lower prices that will increase penetration.
According to Arab News which states
"Once implemented, this will place Pakistan among a legion of emerging market countries such as Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Kazakhstan, India and Sri Lanka-- all of which are planning to launch the ultra-fast mobile internet service in the next two years. The country has some 91 million 3G/4G subscribers, and the upcoming auction is seen a precursor to any 5G launch.
To ensure spectrum availability which is a critical resource for broadband proliferation, PTA said it has geared up efforts to hire international consultants for the market valuation and auction of spectrum in 1800 MHz and 2100 MHz."
Reference
- https://www.dawn.com/news/1642492/pakistan-to-remain-behind-in-smartphone-usage-5g-coverage-gsma
- https://www.arabnews.pk/node/1797556/pakistan
- https://www.gsma.com/mobileeconomy/asiapacific/
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