Smartphones to Close Digital Divide in Pakistan

[Riaz Haq]

Mobile broadband (3G/4G) subscriptions in Pakistan crossed 34 million in September 2016, according to Pakistan Telecommunication Authority.  This figure includes 3.5 million subscriptions of higher bandwidth 4G/LTE offered by China Mobile Pakistan (CMPak aka Zong) and Warid.

Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) is forecasting the number of smartphones in the country to reach 40 million by the end of the year 2016, according to Daily Times.

Lenovo Smartphone Launch in Pakistan

More and more these smartphones are now becoming affordable and accessible to the urban poor and the rural populations of the country. This is helping close the digital divide.

Beginning in October 2016,  Pakistani government will give away five million smartphones to farmers in the country in an effort to improve knowledge of modern farming techniques, according to the BBC. Large numbers of farmers in countries such as India and Kenya have also recently experimented with smartphone technology.

In addition, the Benazir Income Support Program (BISP) has announced plans to give away 30,000 smartphones with 3G subscriptions funded by Universal Service Fund (USF) to low income Pakistanis on BISP.  Each smartphone will have Rs. 250 balance per month. It is intended to enhance digital and financial inclusion, according to a report in Pakistan Observer.

The objective of giving away smartphones is to help increase farmers' productivity.  Digital access is is expected to reduce poverty in rural and semi-urban areas of Pakistan by supporting micro and small enterprises. Market access to the products of marginalized segments will improve their welfare and at the same time boost the national economy.

Lack of financial inclusion and the growing digital divide are known impediments to progress of the low-income and poor segments of the population. Any effort by the government to remove such impediments will help Pakistan's economy by making more people more productive.

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[Riaz Haq]

Pakistan saw 13 million smartphone shipments in 2016, according to IDC, as the overall mobile market gradually tilts towards smartphones. The ratio of flip phone to smartphone shipments is now at 60:40.

https://www.techinasia.com/xiaomi-launch-pakistan

Chinese gadget manufacturer Xiaomi announced today it’s launching in Pakistan – the world’s sixth-most populous country – after months of speculation and official denials.

Xiaomi has expanded slowly since its 2011 debut in China, focusing mainly on Southeast Asia, India, parts of the Middle East, and Brazil. Its Pakistan entry is the largest since it ventured into Brazil mid-2015.

Xiaomi’s coming to Pakistan through a distribution partnership – as it did in Brazil – with Rocket Internet’s ecommerce marketplace, Daraz, which is present in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, and Sri Lanka.

Jack Yung, Xiaomi’s sales director for South Asia, said three models will be available initially – the Mi Max, plus the budget Redmi Note 4 and Redmi 4A. There are also plans to sell the Mi Band 2, but the company is tight-lipped whether the full range of Xiaomi’s products will eventually reach the country.

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As the world's sixth most populous nation Pakistan is a big market for smartphone makers. The country was projected to have about 40 million smartphones last year. Qmobile is the current smartphone vendor in the country. 


http://mashable.com/2017/02/20/xiaomi-launch-pakistan/#nIuXQ5yonqql

India is Xiaomi's biggest market outside China, company CEO Lei Jun said earlier this year. In 2016, Xiaomi had hit one billion dollar in revenue in the country. Even as if the company does well in India, it is losing its charm in the home country. Once the hottest phone brand in its home market, Xiaomi had slipped to fifth spot in the fourth quarter last year, according to IDC.

[Riaz Haq]

#Pakistan banks embark on #financialinclusion-
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/business/banking-finance/pakistan-banks...

Financial Inclusion Plan's target is to raise number of customers with access to bank accounts
The Pakistani banking sector, which has already been highly profitable, is on track to expand further with millions of new customers set to enter its fold owing to financial inclusion initiatives.

The priority target of the Financial Inclusion Plan (FIP) is to raise the number of customers with access to bank accounts and services to 50 per cent of the adult population. The number was 23 per cent in 2015 and 12 per cent in 2008.

These are some of the key objectives of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), the central bank, and its two associates - Pakistan Microfinance Investment Company (PMIC) and the Central Directorate of National Savings (CDNS) - in launching the Pakistan Financial Inclusion & Infrastructure Project. It has the potential to expand the banking sector, the overall economy and fund new infrastructure projects. The World Bank has come up with a $130 million assistance programme for the FIP.

This decision has been welcomed by the government, bankers and the millions of villagers who have never visited a bank, written a cheque or dealt in any other banking instrument.

What will be the profitability and benefits for service providers and the common man? "The sky is the limit," Finance Minister Ishaq Dar told Khaleej Times.

"The programme will impact the people and the whole economy in a scale never imagined in the entire developing world," said Mohammad Ashraf Wuthra, governor of the SBP.

A spokesman of the SBP's Development Finance Group (DFG) said the project aims at providing banking services to persons, households and businessmen, better access to financial services and banking via modern digital payments. "This will be assisted by fast-growing IT services," the spokesman said.

The SBP will channel the required funds through the PMIC. It is the PMIC's responsibility to provide funds to institutions such as micro finance banks and CDNS branches to develop new financial products to attract people with small savings. The initiative will also help people with savings to fund national infrastructure projects and provide funds to small and medium industries and commercial units at reasonable costs.

Owners of small businesses and households are still seeking greater access to credit, banks, the financial market and other sources of finance. After the policy was implemented to expand financial inclusion from 2008 to 2015, the number of people and households with access to various types of financial services had risen from 12 per cent in 2008 to 23 per cent in 2015.

Apart from the Financial Inclusion Plan, the banks are moving ahead in other areas too. For instance, the growth in FDI inflows is enhancing banks' profitability and financial transactions. The SBP reported that FDI inflows rose 9.9 per cent during the first seven months of the financial year 2016-17 as compared to 2015-16. The fund inflow was mainly from the Netherlands, China and Turkey.

In another development, the SBP has asked banks, forex firms and money changers to accept old US dollar bills from the public. People, including overseas Pakistanis visiting home, have raised complaints that money changers and banks are not accepting old US dollar bills and bills of smaller denominations. In cases where they accepted old bills and bills of $5, $10 and $20, the customers had to suffer losses in terms of lower rates. This move by the SBP should be a big help to all Pakistanis at home and abroad.

[Riaz Haq]

Fast track growth of digital ecosystem, financial inclusion

http://pakobserver.net/fast-track-growth-digital-ecosystem-financia...

Amanullah Khan

Karachi

For the overall digital ecosystem development in Pakistan, a consultative and collaborative approach is required among different industries ranging from Health, Education, Agriculture and Media on different levels including respective regulators, government bodies, private sector and public at large to drive similar socio-economic benefits that emerged through the convergence of ICT and banking sector.
In line with the government’s vision for digital financial inclusion in the country, PTA is serving more as a facilitator helping mobile operators transform themselves into digital service providers and creating awareness among the masses to fully capitalize this opportunity for the betterment for all.
These views were expressed by Dr. Syed Ismail Shah, Chairman, Pakistan Telecommunication Authority during his keynote as the Guest of Honor in Digital Banking and Mobile Payments Summit 2017 held in Karachi.
Shah presented the growth witnessed in telecommunication sector over the years with special focus on mobile broadband. He also shared the regional comparison of data usage over the internet and the surge observed in Pakistan following the launch of 3G and 4G technology.
Shah pointed out that close to 90% of the country’s population is covered in terms of mobile telephony and few projects have already been launched to take it further.
Addressing the summit, Syed Irfan Ali, Executive Director, Banking Policy and Regulations Group, State Bank of Pakistan said, “Achievement of Financial Inclusion is the first and foremost objective of the Government of Pakistan and the central bank. SBP’s National Financial Inclusion Strategy (NFIS) has been set out to enhance the outreach of basic financial services to unbanked/undeserved segments and aims to target 50% growth in bank accounts by adult population by 2020. Branchless Banking is the strongest driver for achievement of financial inclusion objective and with 11 branchless banking operators, 20 million mobile wallets and agent network of 350,000 over 1.3 million transactions are carried out every day.”
Ali also said that aimed at taking customer services in financial services industry to the next level, the State Bank of Pakistan is working to introduce a separate category of Digital Bank which incorporates new and developing technologies throughout a financial services entity.
The conference was organized by Pakistan’s premiere conference producers TerraBiz in collaboration with PwC as the Premium Knowledge Partners and featured some of the most insightful speakers from across Pakistan, Europe and the US. The summit was attended by over 400 delegates.
Chris Skinner, Fintech Titan by Wall Street Journal delivered the international keynote on the ‘internet value and the next 10 years in banking’.

[Riaz Haq]

THE EXPRESS TRIBUNE > BUSINESS
Google puts Pakistan among 4 countries that will give next billion smartphone users

https://tribune.com.pk/story/1573034/2-google-puts-pakistan-among-4...

KARACHI: The ‘Next Billion Users’ of smartphones will emerge from four developing countries including Pakistan, according to a Google representative speaking at the launch ceremony of the company’s latest application.

The other three countries include Indonesia, India and Brazil, Google’s Asia Pacific Industry Head Khurram Jamali said on Thursday, as the company launched ‘Datally’, an Android-based app that helps smartphone users understand, control, and save mobile data.

“At least 40 million people are connected to the internet in Pakistan at the moment,” he said while talking to The Express Tribune. “Before the introduction of 3G/4G, the number was about five million.”
He said that the number of people watching videos on the internet is growing by 66% annually while social media users are increasing by 35% per year, adding that 80% of the users surf the internet through mobile phones.

“Now mobile is internet and internet is mobile,” he stated.

The released app, ‘Datally’, works on all smartphones running Android 5.0 (Lollipop) and higher, and is available on the Google Play Store globally.

Google found during extensive user research around the world that many smartphone users worry about running out of data. This is an especially acute problem for the new generation of smartphone-users from developing countries intending to come online, Jamali said.

People testing the app saved up to 30% of mobile data, depending on the way they used Datally, a presser released after the event stated.

Apps frequently use data in the background for updating content and information. Datally’s ‘Data Saver’ feature lets users control data on an app-by-app basis, so that data only goes to apps they care about.

Data Saver bubble

“Once Data Saver is turned on, Datally’s Data Saver bubble will appear when a user goes into an app that is allowed to use data. Whenever that app uses data, the Data Saver bubble will show the current rate of data usage, and users can easily choose to block that app’s data use if things start to get out of control. The Data Saver bubble is like a speedometer for mobile data.

Five companies plan to set up cellphone assembly lines

“Datally alerts users when apps start consuming a lot of data, and it allows them to see how much data they have used on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis.

“Datally’s Wi-Fi feature helps find networks nearby, rated by the Datally community. Once connected, users can rate the Wi-Fi networks themselves based on their own experience.

It was the first time in Pakistan’s history that Google launched an application at the same time as all the other countries which shows Pakistani market’s growing importance for Google, said Tania Aidrus, chief of staff of Next Billion User project.

“Google is working on digitalising Urdu to promote local content and bring the vast majority of non-English-speaking Pakistanis online,” she added.

[Riaz Haq]

India ranks 109 in mobile internet speeds, 76 for fixed broadband: Ookla Global Index

India ranks at a lowly 109 when it comes to mobile internet speeds on a global scale, while it fares slightly better with a ranking of 76 in fixed broadband speeds

India ranks at a lowly 109 when it comes to mobile internet speeds on a global scale, while it fares slightly better with a ranking of 76 in fixed broadband speeds, according to Ookla’s November Speedtest Global Index. According to the company, the average mobile download speed in India was 7.65 Mbps at the beginning of 2017, and this has improved marginally to 8.80 Mbps for November.

However, India does not fare so well in comparison to its neighours for mobile internet speeds. If one goes by the list, India is ranked below Pakistan (13.08 Mbps rank 89)  , Sri Lanka, Nepal, and we actually saw our rankings drop down for the month. Ookla says that while mobile internet speeds in India saw a 15 per cent increase, it was the fixed broadband line which jumped drastically with close to 50 per cent increase and stood at 18.82 Mbps for November. In January, speeds for fixed broadband line stood at 12.12 Mbps.

http://indianexpress.com/article/technology/tech-news-technology/in...

https://www.speedtest.net/global-index

[Riaz Haq]

Punjab distributes 110,000 android phones to farmers

https://en.dailypakistan.com.pk/business/punjab-distributes-110000-...

The Chief Minister of Punjab Shahbaz Sharif will inaugurate a scheme to provide free Android smartphones to 110,000 farmers in the province on Monday (tomorrow).

The Punjab government will give 110,000 smart mobile phones to farmers with an objective to keep them updated about agriculture department recommendations about their crops.

The Chief Minister of Punjab Shahbaz Sharif will inaugurate a scheme in Multan.

According to the spokesman of Punjab government, the farmers would get information regarding ecosystem, latest production techniques, subsidies on agriculture inputs, market prices of different commodities, and the latest researches. The farmers will pay Rs500 to 1000 for acquiring one smart mobile phone.

The tenants will pay Rs500 while the owners of land would pay Rs1000. The government will also provide free-of-cost 1 GB internet service. Initially, the facility will be given to registered farmers only. According to official sources, the scheme will commence from March 12 and Chief Minister Punjab Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif will inaugurate the scheme.

[Riaz Haq]

Alibaba affiliate AFG to invest $185m in microfinance banking sector in Pakistan:

https://dailytimes.com.pk/214546/afg-to-invest-185m-in-microfinance...

KARACHI: The Ant Financial Services Group, an affiliate company of the Chinese Alibaba Group, will invest $184.5 million for a 45 percent stake in Telenor Microfinance Bank (TMB), a subsidiary of Telenor Group, to further develop TMB’s mobile payment and digital financial services.

Ant Financial, the most valuable fintech company in the world operates Alipay, the world’s largest mobile and online payments platform as well as Yu’e Bao, the world’s largest money-market fund. It also runs the Sesame Credit rating system.

Telenor Group announced on Tuesday that it has reached a strategic partnership agreement with Ant Financial Services Group in Pakistan, where Ant Financial will invest $184.5 million for a 45 percent stake in TMB. The strategic partnership between Telenor Group and Ant Financial combines TMB’s knowledge and local market presence with more than 20 million customers, and Ant’s technology in Alipay, the world’s largest digital payment platform, and other financial services, to bring mobile payment and inclusive financial services to individuals as well as small and micro businesses in Pakistan.

TMB offers Easypaisa, Pakistan’s first mobile financial services platform launched in 2009, which has since developed into the largest branchless banking service in Pakistan in terms of agent network, active accounts and transaction value, according to the State Bank of Pakistan. TMB also provides micro-finance and related financial services to the less privileged and unbanked segment of the Pakistani society.

“Partnering with a world leading payment provider like Ant Financial will strengthen TMB’s future payment platform and set new standards in the digital banking business in Pakistan. The establishment of this partnership is well in-line with the expressed Telenor strategy of focusing our financial services efforts in emerging markets, making sure that we’re able to build and modernize the businesses in line with customer needs. I’m truly excited about the opportunities this partnership brings for Telenor Microfinance Bank going forward,” says Sigve Brekke, CEO of Telenor Group.

“Ant Financial is pleased to be in this strategic partnership with Telenor Group. Alipay’s technologies make us uniquely placed to achieve our mission of bringing the world equal opportunities. Today, we are very happy to share our technology knowhow with Telenor Microfinance Bank,” said Eric Jing, CEO of Ant Financial.

[Riaz Haq]

Mutant Varieties Satisfy Market and add USD 6 Billion to Pakistan’s Economy

https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/mutant-varieties-satisfy-marke...

When Pakistani farmers harvested fields planted with a new mutant variety of cotton, not only did they have a higher yield, they also received a higher price at the market because of the improved fibre quality. Farmers who adopted mutant varieties of sesame released in 2016 saw yields double and income increase, and now these new varieties cover 50 percent of the area planted to sesame in the entire country. Those who planted a mutant variety of castor bean released in 2017, bred for early maturity and high oil content, have already planted it on 2 000 ha and are making an extra USD 618 per ha. These are just a few of dozens of advances made possible by Pakistan’s Nuclear Institute for Agriculture and Biology (NIAB) which, with the support of the Joint FAO/IAEA Division, has used mutation breeding to improve varieties of eight different crops – benefitting millions of Pakistani farmers and their families, and adding billions to the Pakistan economy.

Across the millennia, those entrusted with saving seeds for planting in future seasons have always made decisions related to the environment, choosing seeds from varieties that will give them the best chance of a good harvest. Even as science has advanced the field from simply saving seeds to cross breeding and now to mutation breeding, the crucial role of the plant breeder has remained largely unchanged – developing varieties that can thrive in whatever the local environment has to offer and be resilient enough to adapt to change. Since 1969, Pakistan’s Nuclear Institute for Agriculture and Biology (NIAB), an institute of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, has overseen the development of 43 mutant crop varieties, ranging from sesame seed to castor bean to mandarin to cotton – all bred in response to what Pakistan’s farmers and their consumers need.

The government of Pakistan recognizes the importance of breeding crop varieties specifically for the Pakistan situation – its terrain, its climate, the needs and capacities of its farmers and, of course, when it comes to food crops, the taste and texture that will appeal to consumers. This government support of the NIAB mutant breeding programme has paid back in terms of increased yields and higher quality products, which have not only contributed to farmers’ livelihoods, it has meant more food for the marketplace and improved food security. Two sesame varieties released in 2016 and 2017 have double the yield of traditional varieties and are more suitable for modern cultivation techniques. The mutant mandarin variety, NIAB Kinnow, released in 2017, has an increased yield of more than 30 percent and reduced seed count from around 50 to just 3-5 seeds per fruit, which makes it more valuable and popular for export.

NIAB has received support from the Joint Division for more than 30 years, including equipment and technology packages for mutation breeding, individual staff trainingthrough fellowships, and national and regional training courses. The mutation breeding process calls for irradiating and then planting crop seeds, and then screening them as they grow in the following generations to see which induced changes that emerge could be helpful for breeding in future generations – from aesthetics of colour and texture to physiological changes that account for traits such as heat or cold tolerance, resilience or length of the growing period.

[Riaz Haq]

#India’s #Smartphone Revolution Is a Double-edged Sword.“To most Indians, the smartphone is their first camera, first TV, first video device, first Walkman, and first MP3 player. It may even be their first alarm clock and calculator,”#fakenews #violence
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/indias-smartphone-revolu...

Imagine you live in a small village in rural India. Your annual income is around $1,800. You’ve never owned (or even used) a computer or the internet, or any of the electronics that are a part of daily life in Western nations. Suddenly, you have access to a smartphone.

“To most Indians, the smartphone is their first camera, first TV, first video device, first Walkman, and first MP3 player. It may even be their first alarm clock and calculator,” according to Ravi Agrawal, managing editor of Foreign Policy and former CNN New Delhi bureau chief. That is the dramatic change this small device is bringing to hundreds of millions of Indians, as extremely low-cost smartphones and data plans increasingly become available.

Technology in India has traditionally been only available to the rich, to English speakers, and to city dwellers, Agrawal noted. Indeed, the internet was “long a source of great divides in India,” he said, but the smartphone could start to close the gap.

To be sure, widespread use of smartphones has obvious benefits: improvements in education, greater access to information, higher productivity, more efficiency. But there is a dark side. Use of the device is spreading like wildfire through a population that Agrawal believes hasn’t been adequately prepared to handle mobile technology wisely and safely. He discussed the issue recently in a talk at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perry World House, based on his new book India Connected: How the Smartphone is Transforming the World’s Largest Democracy.

The smartphone has tremendously accelerated India’s access to the internet. In 2000, only about 2% or 3% of the country’s population owned personal computers and landline telephones, so they were the only ones with access. (In the U.S. at the same time, 50% of people were online.) Ten years later, 100 million Indians were online as many bought PCs or visited cyber cafes. But there were still millions without access. Today, some 465 million Indians are online, out of a population of 1.3 billion, and the number is increasing at the breathtaking rate of three people per second, Agrawal said.

“Most Indians can’t afford PCs; most Indians will never, ever own a PC,” notes Agrawal. Many will never have landline telephones either. But with the smartphone, neither is necessary.

“To most Indians, the smartphone is their first camera, first TV, first video device, first Walkman, and first MP3 player. It may even be their first alarm clock and calculator.”–Ravi Agrawal

Although most Indians cannot afford to buy iPhones (they cost about $1,200 in that country, the lion’s share of an average citizen’s salary), companies such as Xiaomi, Samsung, Micromax, and Reliance Jio are offering them phones they can afford. In some cases, noted Agrawal, a smartphone can be leased for less than $23. “That’s how cheap it is now to try and get online.”

In addition to breaking the financial barrier, smartphones have broken the language barrier. Most of the population doesn’t speak English, and English used to be a necessity for internet use. But “smartphones have changed all of that,” observed Agrawal. Now if you speak Hindi, Bengali, or one of India’s many other tongues, multilingual software enables you to type, search, and read online.

KNOWLEDGE@WHARTON HIGH SCHOOL

Even illiterate individuals — of whom there are nearly 300 million in India — can learn to use the device. With the Google Assistant, they can say in their own language, for example, “‘Show me the Taj Mahal,’ and up pops a video showing them this great wonder that they’ve all heard of but never seen,” notes Agrawal. So in some ways the smartphone is a great equalizer.

Fake News on the Phone

Yet with all the apparent benefits, “there is so much that can go wrong,” said Agrawal. One problem is the proliferation of “fake news,” which he noted has sparked religiously-motivated lynchings and other violence.

India has also experienced more internet shutdowns than any other nation — Syria and Iraq follow — in which the government temporarily pulls the plug in the name of halting rumors that spark unrest. There were over 100 shutdowns in 2018 alone, according to Forbes, and the frequency appears to be increasing. These have a negative effect on the economy as well.

There’s also been an explosion in pornography, Agrawal notes. “The head of one of India’s biggest wireless companies told me that 70% of his company’s bandwidth is porn, believe it or not.”

According to Agrawal, a young boy growing up in rural India has a very different life than someone growing up in the West. “He’s not really sensitized to the female body … he’s never even seen a woman’s legs.” He is segregated from girls in school and in college, and may have unhealthy notions of the opposite sex, and sex in general. “And then if porn — and oftentimes violent porn — is this person’s first entry point to romance and sexuality, that’s immensely damaging in ways that I don’t think we fully have come to comprehend as a society,” said Agrawal.

Agrawal was asked about a possible link between the large amount of pornography and the problem of sexual violence against women in India (what BBC News recently called India’s “rape crisis.”)  He said that although as a journalist he believed in freedom of information — and that he approached the question of internet porn without passing moral judgment — he believed it was “a real problem … a contributing factor that we have to keep in mind.”

One problem is the proliferation of “fake news,” which has sparked religiously-motivated lynching and other violence.

Another internet-related problem is a condition that Agrawal callled nomophobia, or ‘no-mobile-phobia,’ the fear of being separated from your phone or losing battery power, which is on the rise in India. While some may find this hard to take seriously, it’s not a laughing matter, he said. “It’s a growing concern because it has led to many young Indians feeling a real sense of anxiety and depression when they’re not near their phone.” Agrawal linked the phenomenon to the sudden proliferation of smartphones in a population with little or no technology experience.

He drew an interesting comparison between India’s smartphone revolution and the profound effects of the automobile on 20th-century America. The mass availability of the car led to the interstate highway system, which in turn led to the rise of suburban communities and the concept of commuting to work. Cars also helped create so-called bits of “Americana” — diners, gas stations, drive-ins —  not to mention the cultural and imaginative zeitgeist. “Every Hollywood movie featured the car: the race, the chase … the first kiss was always in the car.” Agrawal said the car was every American’s “first private property … it was freedom, the American dream.”

The smartphone might be functioning in a similar way for India, a young country in which the average age is 27. “Can this be their mobility? Can it be their dream of a better life, a better job, to improve their education?” Another parallel Agrawal drew was that in India, one’s smartphone and choice of phone cover express something about the owner’s age and status, the way Americans may judge each other based on their cars’ make and model.

But again, there’s a need for people to be educated about the devices they’re using. “The car can be a weapon of mass destruction,” said Agrawal. “There’s a reason why governments and the private sector invest so much money in campaigns to tell you not to drink and drive, and … to wear a seat belt.” Similarly, Indians need guidance on using smartphones safely and responsibly, “and learn how not to be susceptible to fearmongering when we’re online.”

In India, 70% of Uber rides are paid for in cash. “Why? Indians don’t trust credit cards. They just don’t believe in that system, not yet.”

Cash in E-commerce

Agrawal described differences between how smartphones are used in India and in Westernized nations. For one thing, India is a cash-based society, and that preference has carried over into its internet commerce. In India, 70% of Uber rides are paid for in cash. “Why? Indians don’t trust credit cards. They just don’t believe in that system, not yet.” Similarly, Flipkart, Amazon’s main competitor in India, instituted a system in which the recipient pays cash for their item upon delivery.

He termed India a “low-trust society,” citing an additional example of Indians carrying dual SIM cards in their smartphones, another thing that most Westerners don’t have. “Let’s say you have Airtel and Vodafone, you’re sort of hedging your bets because Airtel might work one day, Vodafone might work the other day, so you want to make sure you’ve got both options.”

Moreover, Indians tend to pay for data as they go, rather than sign a monthly contract. “They’ll put down 200 rupees for data and wait until they use it [up], and then put down another 200 rupees.” This arrangement, noted Agrawal, suits both the customer and the company, because the lack of trust cuts both ways. Customers want to ensure they can switch carriers at any time, and companies want to ensure they don’t get stuck with exorbitant monthly usage bills from customers with insufficient funds.

While Agrawal stood by his belief that the smartphone is hugely transformative for India, and is perhaps the biggest change agent of all, trust will take time to develop. Yet it doesn’t have to be an insurmountable hurdle. Trust can be “almost like inertia, you sort of push and push and push, and then there’s a moment where suddenly society trusts more.”

Overall, he believes that the smartphone is essentially a catalyst, along with other advances in India such as rapid urbanization, the empowerment of women, vast infrastructure spending and rising income levels. “It’s going to make things speed up,” Agrawal said. “It’s going to give everyone a way to participate in all this change.”

[Riaz Haq]

#Pakistan bridging the #DigitalDivide via #mobile #broadband. 40 unserved tehsils/towns being connected with 900Km optical #fiber cable in Bajaur, Mohmand, Khyber, Orakzai, Kurram & FR (Peshawar) areas and adding 1,795 kms of unserved highways.
https://nation.com.pk/19-Aug-2019/on-account-of-shareholding-in-ptcl

The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government, in its first year, deposited Rs4.76 billion of dividends to the national exchequer on account of shareholding in the Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL). According to the one year performance report of Naya Pakistan, achievements of the Ministry of Information Technology & Telecom, during the last one year, covering areas like ease of doing business, bridging the digital divide, promoting entrepreneurship, increasing foreign exchange earnings and austerity are as follows:

Bridging the data divide through digital inclusion promoting integration projects have been launched to provide voice & broadband services in areas of North/ South Waziristan, FR Bannu/Lakki/Tank, Dadu/Hyderabad & Bahawalpur Districts (3,100 Mauzas) benefiting a population of approximately 6.5 Million.

Forty unserved tehsils/towns are being connected with 900Km optical fiber cable covering Bajaur, Mohmand, Khyber, Orakzai, Kurram & FR (Peshawar) areas.
Through National Roaming Services, 1,795 kms of unserved segments of National Highways including N10 (Uthal to Jiwani), N25 (Hub to Uthal, Uthal to Quetta), N65 (Quetta to Dera Allah Yar), N50 (Kuchlak to Sherani) and N70 (Killa Saifullah to Rakni).
Increasing software exports by establishing linkage between foreign and local ICT sector investors: The registration process of IT and IT enabled services companies with Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB) is now paperless and automated, powering a real time online company directory, searchable by international investors, partners and customers.

This, in turn, has allowed for the number of IT & ITeS companies registered with the government to rise to 2,013 as of 30th June, 2019 compared to 1,762 registrations in the previous year showing an annual growth rate of 14.24%.

As of 30th June 2019, IT & IT enabled Services (ITeS) export remittances have surged to $902 million at a growth rate of 8.19%, whereas, PSEB estimates that total IT & ITeS exports are US$ 4.1 billion that include $0.5 billion earned by Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), Independent Consultants & Freelancers.