March 1, 2006	Wednesday	Muharram 30, 1427

KARACHI, Feb 28: As many as 1.5 million people are being enlisted as new mobile phone users per month in Pakistan as compared to 2.5 — 3 million people per month in India.

Currently, 21 million people are using mobile phones in Pakistan. It was disclosed that in term of market share Mobilink and Ufone are the major players.

This was stated by president and chief executive of Ufone, Babar Khan, while talking to journalists at a local hotel on Tuesday.

He expects that the number of mobile phone users will reach 42 million in 2006. Pakistan is among the five top countries, which has achieved 47 per cent GSM growth. Other countries are USA, Russia, India and China, he added. Babar said that the GSM operators cover 30 per cent of the rural areas of Pakistan.

Ufone has so far invested $400 million in the last five years and it plans to invest an additional 25 per cent of $400 million every year.

The total investment on the infrastructure side by the GSM operators stand between $1.6 to $2 billion, he said. He thinks that the market has enough number of players and there is no need for more investment in this sector as the current players have the capability to cover the huge requirement of connections in future.

On the privatization of PTCL, he said Ufone and Paknet will also be handed over to the buyer of the PTCL.