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Please let me know how many phones with a breakdown of feature phones and smartphones Qmobile sells.
Hi! Thank you for your question about how many phones does Qmobile sell in Pakistan and a breakdown of the figure into feature phones and smartphones.
In short, 65 million -74.6 million mobiles are Qmobile. 1.89 million - 19.57 million smartphones are Qmobile while 45.34 million - 72.71 million are Qmobile feature phones. Qmobile could be selling anywhere between 864,000 – 1.72 million units in a month – 181,440 units to 361,200 units per month of smartphone and 682,560 to 1.36 million feature phones. With tremendous growth in smartphone shipments, the penetration of smartphones is expected to increase drastically. I found the tribune, technodoze and twittistaan to be the most helpful in answering this question. I have provided a deep dive of my findings below.
OVERVIEW
I have put together resources for estimating the sales of phones from Qmobile. However, to arrive at a conservative estimate, I have assumed two approaches to arrive at a good estimate.
Pakistan has a total population of 195.8 million. It has a mobile phone user penetration of 79% which is 149.2 million users. Technodoze estimates the country to have over 130 million mobile users. Total smartphone penetration is 4.5% which makes 9 million smartphone users in 2015. Prediction is for 40 million smartphones by 2016. In 2015, 31% of mobiles purchased were smartphones. According to infographic by Grappetite, 72% users own smartphones. Qmobile is used by 21% of smart phone users in Pakistan. Also, 35% of smartphone users carry a low cost phone – features phone and 60% of Pakistani’s use more than one cell phone. Finally, Qmobile maintains a market share of approximately 50%.
In terms of future projections, it is clear that Qmobile dominates the lower cost segment. Pakistan is expected to have 40 million smartphones by end of 2016 and smartphones will comprise of 55% of Pakistan’s total mobile phone imports by end of fiscal year 2017-18. The monthly growth rate of 3G/4G subscribers has been averaging 14.43% which forecasts a tremendous growth in the near future. The shipment of smartphones saw a growth of 124% year on year in 2015 is expected to continue.
APPROACH ONE:
Out of 130 million mobile users, 72% own smartphones i.e. 93.6 million smartphones are in the market. Qmobile has a 21% share of the smartphone market i.e. 19.57 million smartphones are Qmobile. Overall, Qmobile maintains a market share of 50% i.e. 65 million mobiles are Qmobile. Since 19.57 million phones are Qmobile smartphones, the remaining 45.34 million are feature phones of Qmobile in the market.
APPROACH TWO:
Using Twittistaan estimates, 9 million smartphone users were in 2015 out of 149.2 million phone users. Qmobile with 50% market share would equate to 74.6 million phone users. Since 21% smartphone users had Qmobile phones i.e. 1.89 million smartphone users, that leaves over 72.71 million Qmobile feature phones.
MONTHLY SALES
Pakistan had a mobile phone market of $840 million a year as of September 2015 mobile phone imports equated to 1.53 million units. However, another $1 billion worth of mobile phones enter the country through grey channels. Qmobile imported 864,000 units in September 2015 (for the month). Further, if we assume a similar proportion from the grey channel as well, we can expect another 864,000 Qmobile phones entering the country in a year.
Therefore, Qmobile would be selling anywhere between 864,000 – 1.72 million units in a month. Out of this, if we assume the same distribution of smartphone vs feature phone, Qmobile would be selling 21% of smartphones and remaining feature phone i.e.
Smartphones: 21% of 864,000 = 181,440 units per month (lower bound) to 361,200 units per month (upper bound)
Feature phone: 682,560 (lower bound) - 1.36 million (upper bound)
I can extend the calculation for mobile users (since many people use more than one phone) however, that would not alter the number of mobiles but rather only the penetration rate.
CONCLUSION
To conclude, 65 million -74.6 million mobiles are Qmobile. 1.89 million - 19.57 million smartphones are Qmobile while 45.34 million - 72.71 million are Qmobile feature phones. Qmobile could be selling anywhere between 864,000 – 1.72 million units in a month – 181,440 units to 361,200 units per month of smartphone and 682,560 to 1.36 million feature phones. With tremendous growth in smartphone shipments, the penetration of smartphones is expected to increase drastically.
I hope the research is useful. Thank you for using Wonder!