Rewriting the Telecom Playbook
Pakistan’s telecom sector stands at an inflection point where urgency, opportunity, and inevitability converge. The shift from traditional Tel-Cos to integrated Tech-Cos is no longer an abstract idea. It is a structural transition already reshaping global telecoms. The question is not whether to move, but how quickly and decisively the move is made. Delayed response risks irrelevance, while timely adaptation opens the door to national digital leadership.
Pakistan’s potential is significant but underutilized. According to the Asian Development Bank, Pakistan’s digital ecosystem contributes 1.5 percent to the country’s GDP, powered by growth in broadband subscriptions (142.3 million in 2024, up 100% in five years) and annual e-commerce revenues exceeding $10.4 billion. Yet foundational systems remain undeveloped. According to VTT Global assessment, the public cloud services market, conservatively valued at USD ~ 0.7bn in 2024 and projected to reach USD ~1.7 billion by 2029, is still overwhelmingly served by global providers. Local telecom operators hold less than 5 percent of this rapidly expanding domain. These gaps are not just economic. They are strategic.
Around the world, operators are responding. Singtel has established sovereign cloud infrastructure across Southeast Asia. Deutsche Telekom now supports digital public services and secure cloud hosting across the EU. STC has developed a full-fledged digital solutions arm with offerings in cybersecurity, cloud, and AI enablement. These are not side businesses. They are now core to their national digital infrastructure. These firms have become pillars of state capacity, not just corporate entities. The global trend is clear: operators that evolve into digital-first TechCos become indispensable to their countries’ digital future.
Pakistan has not remained entirely on the sidelines. Jazz has emerged as one of the important outliers in this transformation. Through Mobilink Bank and JazzCash, it has led efforts in financial inclusion, onboarding 48 million mobile wallet users, spanining rural and urban areas. These services have helped bring women, youth, and small businesses into the formal economy and directly supported government efforts to promote digital payments. Jazz has also played an active role in expanding mobile broadband, digital literacy, and device access across underserved areas. In recognition of this, Jazz CEO Amir Ibrahim was conferred the Hilal-e-Imtiaz, becoming the first telecom executive to receive the award for his role in advancing digital inclusion in Pakistan. It is a testament to what a proactive and nationally aligned telecom strategy can achieve, especially under Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif’s Digital Nation Vision and the country’s digitization and E-Governance Plan, by IT Minister Shiza Fatima Khawaja, who is prioritizing digital governance and the international branding of Pakistan’s tech sector.
This transformation is not only profit for the corporations, but the economic and social returns of this shift are profound. Digital wallets and mobile banking services not only drive convenience, but they also reduce reliance on cash, expand the tax base, and formalize economic activity. A deeper digital economy lowers transaction costs, strengthens transparency, and enables micro and small businesses to access credit, scale operations, and reach wider markets. Pakistan’s tax-to-GDP ratio remains under 10 percent. Expanding digital financial services through the telecom layer is perhaps the most scalable route to improving this figure. Telecom operators are uniquely positioned to provide digital rails that power a cashless economy and financial inclusion at scale.
Despite these examples, the transformation remains incomplete. Most operators continue to operate under legacy commercial models focused on tower expansion, volume-driven bundling, and voice-data resale. Internal capacity to design and deliver modular digital platforms remains limited. Data centre infrastructure remains underdeveloped. Numerous data centres exist in Pakistan, yet most lack Tier III certifications, and most of the enterprise hosting still takes place offshore. Price competitiveness is another challenge. Global hyper-scalers and other international continue to dominate because local services lack cost-performance parity. Beyond infrastructure, the real deficit is in organizational alignment. Few operators have dedicated enterprise units, cross-functional solution teams, or product governance frameworks that enable co-creation with clients.
None of this is irreversible. The opportunity is still immense, but the window is narrowing. What is required now is coordinated action. Telecom operators must make incremental structural commitments to evolution, not just rebranding, but investing in enterprise strategy, talent, and platforms. Policymakers must enable this transition by operationalizing the Cloud First Policy and ensuring robust enforcement of the Personal Data Protection Bill. National data must be hosted in secure, sovereign infrastructure, and government procurement should incentivize local capability-building through tax reliefs, preferential contracting, and digital public investment. These are not long-term considerations. They are immediate national imperatives.
This is not a choice between growth and stagnation. It is a choice between relevance and irrelevance. The decisions made over the next three years will define whether Pakistan builds its own digital future or imports it from abroad. We must act now, not react later.