Zong to Invest $7Mil in Pakistan – huh, thats it?

May 28, 2008 9:48 am 20 comments

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image I’m thinking this is a typo – Shady-sounding blog-based news paper “Daily PK” wrote a story that said the following:

Zong, a Chinese mobile company, Chief Executive Officer Qian Li has said that the Chinese mobile company has invested $721 million in telecom sector in Pakistan during 2007 and it would further invest $7 million in Pakistan this year.

That doesnt make any sense – why would any CEO want to say something like the above? $7Mil is only going to cover TV ad-space for 4-5 months, let alone any level of infrastructure expansion.

Compare this to Warid’s recent announcement of investing $1.5Bil in 2009.

My take is either this is a typo (and that the number should have been $700M or $7B) or if not a typo, has been a conscious attempt by competitors to throw some falsified bad publicity in the world… hmm Warid does have the most market share to lose to Zong….

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20 Comments

  • hi there – i know its not the right blog to enquire but i would still try my luck. I have ben assiged a task to look up for the ways to retain the valuble churned customers. can anyone assist in discovering new ways and mechanics in this regards. to sum it up “how to retain the valuble customers” and or ” how to build desired level of cusotmer loyalty among the subscribers” and these suggestions should be in telco perspective.

  • Zam,

    Would you like fries with that?
    First, your company is “assiging” a task to somebody who has no clue OR prior experience on how to do it. Then, instead of starting the research on google and asking some specific questions on a marketing forum, you want to try your luck here (aka trying to make others do your work for you), and then you make it worse by (probably) quoting right out of the email sent to you for this task. Since this is a web forum, so I will not criticize your multiple spelling mistakes, but looking at your name, I wouldn’t be surprised if you work for Zem.
    Coming back to your request, even though I would not blame any customers who would want to leave your clueless telco, but one way of retaining a small portion of valuable customers would be by you not revealing who you work for.

  • Well buddy! I deeply admire your ability to guess about someone’s organization just by someone’s name. If I use the same analytical skills, than I guess you would be working as a male nurse in some hospital for mentally disabled person (May be thats the reason why you are cynical). By the way it would not surprise me if my guess it right.
    Anyways i would still look for some serious bloggers to come up with suggestions, if any.

  • ummm.. it is a typo, because i went through the same news report, in a better news paper, which reported that CMPak was to invest $800 million more after initially investing the $700 million in Pakistan..

  • Guys you really need to stop flaming each other or we’ll have to start moderation.

    @Zam – that question is too complex to answer via comments. If you’re serious about finding an answer I’d suggest you should hire a consultant.

  • well Usama Dear – Dont give me cold shoulder here, hiring a consultant at my own would not be rational as well as economical for me. I have an idea why dont you start a new thread on “what does customers like to see in their fav operator” subject. i suspect it would bring more responses from bloggers. Anyways thats just a suggestion and nothing else.

  • Well about ZONG’s investment, its just coz of Chinese accent… our reporters will get used to of this, until then we should counter check such confusing figures. And this has happened twice in only 1 month….earlier on CMPak CEO commented somewhere that ZONG acquired 1.2 million subscribers in 1 month, and some one translated it as 12 million in one month…

    Anywayz..

  • Osama can i have your email address kindly. Want to provide you with some piece of news

  • Thats funny … Aamir has pointed to a relevant item. But seriously, I dont think the source of this mistake (if it was one) was China Mobile. My guess is that it was Daily.Pk. Some online news sites don’t seem to have much quality standards.

    On Zam’s comment: I get these kinds of comments all the time. Mostly these are students asking me to prepare answers to their assignment/research topic ‘asap’.

  • Interesting conversation. By the way Zam might be a kiddy who want ready made solution but at least cynic should have shown responsible behavior by not bringing Zem in the whole thing. I wonder how easily we start blaming companies and groups for things. China mobile for the mistake and Warid for the fact that some guy chose a nick being too close to Warid Prepaid brand name.
    Anyways, over all Green and White is doing a great job and Babar I respect you but i expect you to categorize a blog as sub standard just because of one mistake. May be you are perfect but rest are not!

  • Junaid this is the news business – it is incredibly important to get these things right because news impacts the perception of people towards an issue.

    One mistake can be more costly than you are considering – my take is if a blog isnt taking itself seriously about the quality of content they produce they just shouldnt

  • If you want to retain customer, provide delightful experiences.

    Think Apple, it is expensive but people still buy their products.

  • hi ap muj ko pata sakty ha k zong compay ma job karny k ley katni education honi chaly
    plzz tell me
    me wating…..
    ur’s reply
    thanx

  • NAVEED IQBAL

    it is a very good services thought out in pakistan

  • Ok wait a minute, what were we expecting from Chinese?

  • At the expense of what…

    I really hate to be the nagger on this forum, as I was also nagging about Wateen’s WiMax..

    Anyhow, A reliative of mine has worked for Zong. He did pretty good in intial sales and etc. He was temp just as all the other sales staff was.

    They did not pay them salary for two months and when they wanted to confirm their job, they wanted Rs 500,000 check as a “security deposit”.

    He has been aquitted without any formal documentation and they refuse to return his check…

  • I have heard from an AlFalah Bank employee who had to bribe people there before getting job there.

    I used to hear about this type of corruption coming from Government organizations, now private sector too.

  • Must say a very versatile thread, started with ZONG and now in the middle of discussing corruption in private sector :)

    Mohsin J.

  • I must say this site is a good place to gain knowledge about the market. Guyz just be honest and share the fact…

    I came here during my search for WiMax and Edge technology for Braodband Internet and I feel bad to know that we dont have much good options in the market :0(

  • Learn quran at home is an excellent program that enable kids, adults and new muslims to Learn quran. Homequran.com have 24-7 classes. We have students in USA, Canada, UK, France, Australia, Spain, Belgium, Ireland and all over the world. We teach 24 hours a day. You can try three FREE no obligation trial lessons to evaluate our online quran learning service. After that you can decide to continue or discontinue Quran learning with us. We have both male and female tutors.

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