Pakistan’s leading telecommunications provider, Jazz, has invested PKR 3.7 billion in the first quarter of 2023 to expand its 4G network as part of its “4G for all” ambition.
The company’s investment brings its overall expenditure in Pakistan to US$10.4 billion. Despite a 20.4% decrease in USD revenue due to a 47% YoY devaluation of the PKR, Jazz’s overall revenue increased by 16% in local currency.
Jazz CEO Aamir Ibrahim said, “While we continue to invest in expanding the reach and capacity of our 4G network and driving the digital ecosystem, the financial health of the telecom industry is severely impacted due to an unprecedented rise in the cost of operations – primarily fuel, electricity, interest, and forex rates.”
In the current digital emergency, Jazz is seeking urgent policy interventions to ensure that the company can continue to provide robust broadband for Pakistan’s growing needs as a digitally progressive country, he added. The measures, according to Ibrahim, include:
- Delinking the spectrum price from the US dollar
- Staggering license payments over ten annual installments instead of five, and
- Implementing a regulatory approach to encourage disciplined inflationary pricing
Growth records of Jazz
- The telecom operator added more than 1,000 new 4G sites in the last year, leading to a 17.4% YoY increase in its 4G customer base, reaching 43.1 million, while its overall subscriber base reached 73.7 million.
- Jazz’s digital services, including its digital financial service, JazzCash recorded a Gross Transaction Value of PKR 4.5 trillion in two billion transactions over the last 12 months.
- JazzCash reached 14.6 million monthly active users and served 1.4 million customers with digital loans.
- Jazz World saw strong customer adoption levels, with monthly active users growing by 15.9% YoY to reach 12.2 million.
- Tamasha, Jazz’s entertainment platform, witnessed accelerated growth, reaching 5.6 million monthly active users, a 5.6x YoY increase.