Pakistan: A Digital Goldmine for Foreign Investors – Aamir Ibrahim
Staff Report
Islamabad/Dubai: Pakistan, with over 192 million cellular mobile subscribers and 133 million mobile broadband users, is rapidly becoming a prime destination for foreign investment, particularly in the technology sector.
The average monthly data usage per subscriber is nearly 9 GB, reflecting a highly engaged user base. The country’s fintech landscape is also burgeoning, with around 115 million mobile wallets in use.
Coupled with an emerging, youthful, and tech-savvy population, Pakistan presents a compelling opportunity for investors looking to tap into a dynamic and growing market.
These views were shared by Aamir Ibrahim, CEO of Jazz, at the VEON Capital Markets Day 2024 in Dubai, addressing investors from different parts of the world.
Citing examples from Jazz, Aamir informed the audience that it took three decades to reach 72 million cellular mobile customers, but just five years to serve 67 million users monthly across all its digital platforms.
The major ones include Pakistan’s leading fintech, JazzCash; the country’s largest OTT platform, Tamasha; the largest onshore cloud and cybersecurity platform, Garaj; and the largest local lifestyle app, SIMOSA.
Despite significant progress, Aamir emphasized that over 100 million adults remain unbanked, and mobile broadband penetration is only around 55%. This highlights the vast potential for economic growth and social progress by closing this digital divide.
“As Pakistan’s leading digital operator, with investments exceeding US$10.6 billion since inception, Jazz is strategically positioned to be a key driver of the country’s digital transformation,” he said.
Highlighting Jazz’s socioeconomic impact, Aamir stated that Jazz is not only fulfilling the promise of connectivity but is also fundamentally advancing the country.
“As a leader, Jazz is committed to providing education, financial services, entertainment, and a wide range of services that rely on a robust digital infrastructure.” This was made possible, he said, through being laser-focused on the core business while strategically pivoting towards digital services.
“Despite being the market leader, maintaining financial growth is not always guaranteed. However, we have consistently achieved this over the last twelve quarters.
With 38% of the cellular subscriber market share, we significantly punch way above our weight in terms of revenue market share, which has increased from 40% in 2018 to 45% today,” he said.
He added that while Jazz takes pride in its telecom legacy, it aspires to be much more. “We don’t want to be defined solely by the licenses we hold; instead, we aim to evolve with our customers’ changing needs.”
Aamir discussed how the company was now divided into four broad lines of businesses, catering to the domains of connectivity, financial services, entertainment, and enterprise solutions.
Highlighting JazzCash’s massive footprint in Pakistan, Aamir shared that the 360-degree fintech, with close to 18 million MAUs, is driving the digitization of Pakistan’s economy.
“More than PKR 100 billion is digitized through JazzCash every month, with the platform transacting an equivalent of around 7% of Pakistan’s GDP.”
JazzCash also processes over 100,000 micro-loans every day, providing a crucial financial tool for MSMEs, the backbone of Pakistan’s economy that has historically had limited access to other formal financial sources.
He also highlighted Tamasha, Pakistan’s leading entertainment platform, where approximately 40% of users are non-Jazz customers.
In addition to offering live TV, local and international movies and shows, and Tamasha originals, the platform is a go-to digital space for cricket enthusiasts.
Recently, it acquired streaming rights for the ongoing T20 World Cup, as well as all ICC Cricket Tournaments in 2024 and 2025.
Discussing the enterprise service Garaj, Aamir explained that it effectively meets the needs of Pakistani enterprises for data hosting and cybersecurity solutions.
Garaj ensures that Pakistani data remains within the country, fostering local opportunities and growth. “Our enterprise vertical, Jazz Business, caters to 98 out of the 100 PSX-listed companies.
In a short span, Garaj’s revenues have surged from USD 4 million to an impressive USD 115 million,” Aamir disclosed.Jazz Invests Rs5.3b in 1Q24
“By 2027, we anticipate that 24% of our revenue will stem from digital services. Reflecting on this decade of evolution, approximately half of our revenue has originated from services that were non-existent a decade ago,” he concluded.
