Pakistan cell phone subscribers tops 70 million

[saint_devil]

Re: Pakistan cell phone subscribers tops 70 million

Now quite frankly there’s no data available on the net about Dish Antennas in Pakistan but denying the explosion of Dish antennas in early 90 would be just as idiotic as denying that there was NO sudden influx of TVs & VCRs in Pakistan during 70s & 80s due to Dubai Chalo syndrome. So are you going to ask about data for TVs & VCRs and if I don’t give you the numbers, are you going to deny that petro dirhams/denars didn’t help bring about the VCR revolution in Pakistan ?

>> back to mobile penetration rates, the goal should be to comapre apples with apples i.e. see countries with similar economic structures such as south asian countries which being oil importing countries are not benefitting from oil price boom. if you look at penetration rates of pak, india and bdesh, ratio in pak at around 40% is significantly higher than penetration ratio of other two countries where ratio currently stands around 25%. if technology is the main factor in determining penetration rate, why is mobile penetration in pak so much higher than that of its neighbours?

so you want to compare apples with apples – got your basic mathematics homework done ? India with a billion mark population even at ~15% has a subscription base of 115 millions and with rapid expansion of cellular networks, is set to become 3rd biggest country of cell phone users – behind China & US. Now you can continue with your childish attempts of apple to apple comparison
india

>> nigeria despite having lots of oil was poor because oil prices were much lower few years back. given the low skill level of nigerian population as well as govt corruption, nigeria’s economy is heavily dependent on oil. combination of rising oil prices as well as very low debt burden has enabled govt to increase …….

with a poverty level of around 60% and HDI rating of 159 there’s hardly any economic boom to talk of. The government initiatives are at macro-management level which will take years if not decades to have any trickle down effects on the poor masses. Until then this is the reality which you tried to ignore from my last post:

NIGERIA: Elites Squander Delta’s Oil Wealth, Report Says
By Guthrie Gray

WASHINGTON, Feb 3 (IPS) - Official corruption in Nigeria’s oil-rich Niger Delta is robbing the local population of basic health and educational services, according to a new report by Human Rights Watch (HRW).

The 107-page report described health clinics lacking running water and electricity – not to mention mattresses and even the most basic medications – and schools without textbooks and chalk.

“Local government is supposed to help the school but they don’t,” one primary schoolteacher told HRW. “The most important things we need are textbooks, instructional materials, and a toilet…”

The report, released in Lagos this week, found that local government officials in Rivers state have squandered increased revenues derived from higher world oil prices through mismanagement and outright theft. Meanwhile, the state’s local authorities have failed to make primary education and health care available to the state’s enormous indigent population, according to the report, “Chop Fine: The Human Rights Impact of Local Government Corruption and Mismanagement in Rivers State, Nigeria”.

“State and local budgets have expanded dramatically in recent years, but mismanagement and theft have left basic health and education services in a terrible state of decay,” said Peter Takirambudde, Africa director at HRW.

And about your bogus claims that strong economy is leading to a boom of mobile phone usage, its actually other way around. Studies have shown that mobile phone usage is actually leading to a surge in local business & trade activities. Again the article that I posted earlier which you conveniently decided to skip:

11 OCTOBER 2007 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: Sub-Saharan Africa has been left off the grid for decades, with much of the region too remote or impoverished to support telephone lines and internet cables, networks that allow the rest of the world to do business. **Yet a recent boom in mobile phone use has experts predicting that Africa will largely skip wires altogether, with cellular and satellite technology reaching deep into rural areas and stimulating economic growth

…… “It’s serious business—it really is,” Ebong said. Investors from all over the world are cashing in on Africa’s mobile phone market, which, at 67 percent a year, is the fastest growing in the world.
Mobile phones in particular have been linked to economic development. A 2005 study found that developing countries with ten percent more mobile phones per capita than their otherwise identical counterparts enjoyed a slightly higher GDP. In South Africa, 89 percent of small businesses owned by blacks relied exclusively on a mobile phone for communication, and 62 percent credited cell phones with an increase in profits. Studies in Kenya and Tanzania also reported that mobile technology expanded the markets of small and medium sized businesses.

And here’s another one:

** Mobile Is Central To Latin America’s Economic Fortunes**](GSMA)

The research concluded that the industry generates a total of 8.6 billion euros ($10 billion) in tax income for the Brazilian, Colombian, Chilean, Mexican, Peruvian and Venezuelan governments and has created 2.3 million jobs in these countries.

“Although many mobile operators in Latin America are not yet profitable, the industry is making a huge contribution to the region’s economy,” said Tom Phillips, the GSMA’s Chief Government and Regulatory Affairs Officer. "Mobile operators are investing heavily in network infrastructure, giving the Latin American economy a major boost by making telecommunications widely available to the region’s people.”

** Mobile phones and economic growth**](http://www.bworldonline.com/Research/populareconomics.php?id=0012)

Mobile phones have always been seen as tools for faster, more convenient communication. But, there are more benefits from them than meets the eye.
A recent study sponsored by Vodafone, the world’s largest mobile phone operator, points out that while rich and developed countries see wireless phones as nothing but mere gadgets, these actually spurred social and economic growth in poor countries

So care to explain how this sub-sahara region which is the home to some of the poorest nations of the continent, how was it able to lure so many competitors there. What kinda economic boom was there that led to the explosion of cellular market in that region??