KARACHI, Dec 18: Cellphone companies are reluctant to reveal the actual number of non-active SIMs earlier sold by them in the market, but retailers claim that millions of such SIMs are available with them which they want to return to  these  companies after the government imposed a ban on their sale at retail outlets.

However, government decision to impose ban sale of new SIMs at shops proved a boon for franchise stores as they have now started selling eight to 10 new connections a day as compared to one or two connections being sold by them earlier.

Mukhtiar Khan, chairman, SIM Retailers Association, said that one can also estimate the cost of non-active SIMs available with the retailers at an average price of Rs100 per SIM.

He said if a franchise store has to take an average of 5,000 SIMs from various retailers in its area, one can estimate the volume of SIMs available at 1,000 franchise stores countrywide and its cost.

He said only one cell phone operator (Mobilink) has shown willingness to buy back non-active SIMs while other cell companies are yet to show any sympathy with retailers.

He said retailers of SIMs have lost their main business of selling new SIMs as many of them are holding back new unsold SIMs.

Even retailers have been asked to remove the non-active SIMs, otherwise the police would take action against them.

He said retailers have played a major role in boosting sales of cell phone operators.

He said every retailer has also deposited Rs5,000 to Rs40,000 to at least four mobile phone companies to sell favourite numbers and mobile number portability or duplicate numbers.

It was also noticed that some franchise stores of Mobilink have set up a stall outside the store with a display sheet of numbers offering new SIM at Rs70 with Rs30 balance.

Some retailers said that franchise store operators have also raised the price by Rs50-150 on prepaid SIMs to cash in on the situation.

However, some operators of franchise stores said that actually SIM had come to its original price tag. Earlier, the company used to pay Rs250 per SIM to the government and these SIMs were available at lower rates.

About the fate of non-active SIMs, Head of Corporate Communications Mobilink Omar Manzoor told Dawn “we have a policy to buy back unsold/un-activated SIMs from the channel. We will coordinate via our franchisees for this action, and we are endeavoring to ensure that modalities do not cause any loss to any party.”

About actual number of non-active SIMs, he said there was no limit on pull back stock quantity, and Mobilink would buy back all stocks as requested by our franchises after appropriate check and verification.

He said so far the company has not increased prices of SIMs. On further instructions from PTA, he said: “All available non-active SIMS are now blocked and we are complying with PTA directives.”

Telenor Pakistan’s Chief Marketing Officer Aamir Ibrahim said as per prime minister’s instructions, sale of SIMs through franchise and sales and services centres has already been started from Dec 4.

Retailers are extremely important channel in Telenor's distribution chain and the company is working day and night to find a workable solution acceptable to the government, that could help us allow resumption of sale of SIMs from retailers, he said.

He added that this may take another two to three months. As there have been frequent changes in the directions given to operators by the PTA / the Ministry of Interior / the Prime Minister, we had to wait before issuing any further direction to retailers.

“We are finalising a strategy how to take back SIMs from retailers and relevant communications would be provided to retailers through their normal channel (via franchisees),” he said without quoting the actual quantity of SIMs available with retailers in the market.

On increasing price of SIM by Rs100, he said various studies in recent times have proven that increased mobile density has a direct positive impact on GDP of the country.

Telenor Pakistan has been striving to keep the SIM cost at bare minimum to ensure affordability to masses. These measures include absorption of activation tax of Rs250 per new subscriber charged by the government.

Ibrahim said recent change in sale process has virtually shut down 99 per cent of our sales points. “This has resulted in substantially lower sales while cost remains the same. In this scenario, we have no option but to pass on some of the cost to customers.”He expressed the hope that the government would consider adverse impact of the decision in the long run and support resumption of regular sales channels at the earliest.

Regarding PTA instructions about non-active SIMs in the market, he said the company was still awaiting further clarity from the PTA regarding opening of retail channels. No non-active SIMs are being sold by any of our retailers as per government directives, he said.

“We are working with the government / PTA to find an acceptable machine readable solution that would help improve CNIC verification process.”

Farooq Niaz, Zong’s head of public relations, said that there was no issue of non-active SIMs in the company as these have already taken back from retailers. The company would try to settle the issue in case retailers come with any case.