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The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority‘s data showed that for the third straight month, the number of cellular subscribers, broadband penetration, mobile teledensity, and overall teledensity all decreased from November to December 2022.
In Pakistan, there were 192.78 million mobile users as of the end of December, down from 193.55 million at the end of November. Additionally, from 56 percent in November 2022 to 55.81 percent in December 2022, broadband penetration fell.
According to the PTA’s monthly data, tele density for mobile phones declined from 86.7% at the end of November to 86.3% at the end of December. By the end of December, the overall tele density had dropped from 87.9 percent at the end of November to 87.51 percent.
From 54.15 percent at the end of November to 54.43 percent at the end of December, the Monthly Next Generation Mobile Service (NGMS) penetration climbed.
Senior PTA officials informed Business Recorder that the introduction of multiple-finger biometric verification activity for stronger SIM authentication and to address the issue of unlawful SIM sales at the franchise/reseller level may have contributed to the reduction.
The use of biometric verification techniques could lead to a decrease in operators issuing illicit SIM cards, which would then lead to a fall in cellular mobile subscriptions. In the following few months, the trend or scenario would become evident, they added.
By the end of December 2022, there were 121.54 million 3G and 4G customers in Pakistan, an increase of 0.65 million from the 120.89 million users at the end of November 2022.
