Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) revealed that there are 31.77 million smartphone users in Pakistan and this number would reach 40 million by the end of this year.

The evolution of electronic media has been fast and swift with smartphones playing a major role in its growth. Millions of people are getting internet access for the first time in the South Asian region each month, making it a lucrative market.

According to a report, the number of smartphone users in Pakistan is increasing rapidly. With the introduction of third-generation (3G) and fourth-generation (4G-LTE) services in Pakistan, the use of mobile broadband is growing. Currently, there are 133 million mobile users in the country, data issued by Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) revealed.

Based on current trends in e-commerce sector and as per market estimates, more than two million users a month visit the online shopping stores to purchase a cell phone.

To gain the advantage from this ever-increasing demand, the major industry players from telecom operators to mobile phone manufacturers and e-commerce platforms have joined hands with the internet giant Google to promote online trade by giving exclusive discounts on phone purchases just ahead of Eid.

The publicly available data shows mobile phone imports regarding the value and not in units making it tough to figure out category wise imports.

According to the market experts, less than 20 percent of the mobile phones imported in Pakistan are the smartphones.

In almost all the online shopping stores in Pakistan, the category of the smartphone is on the top. Grappetite, a mobile app development firm, had released infographics that highlights the usage patterns of smartphones in Pakistan.

The infographics reveals that 35 percent of the smartphone users in Pakistan carry a inexpensive phone on for safety reasons, while 68 percent of the smartphone users in Pakistan are on Android. Similarly, 77 percent of smartphone users are just 21 to 30 years old and 60 percent of the Pakistani’s use more than one cell phone. Around 16 percent smartphone users regularly buy paid apps while remaining 84 percent are content with free apps.