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General
Team at Qurtaba have added another front to their impressive Urdu language based apps, they have launched their Alif Bay Pay app for Amazon Kindle, as well. Earlier it was released on iTunes.
I love what Qurtaba are doing in a niche area of Urdu Language. Although their start was from Nan-Map for which they now have an iPhone App.There love for Urdu language related apps has been flourishing in recent months. Most of their apps are doing very well on app store, some impressive numbers for their popular Urdu apps are as follows.
Urdu Writer: 10K downloads in 3 months – average 200 downloads…
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Featured Startup General
I happened to be in Quetta on a business trip last month with no idea of where to dine alone. Being a typical Lahoriite, a die-hard food lover, it matters to me that I try the best food of the place I visit. So this is where FCPakistan came to my rescue. I simply logged in, typed in my desired specifications and got atleast 5 suggestions.
The listing included their opening times, specific facilities like ease for physically disabled customers, credit card acceptance, smoking areas, take away facility, whether valet parking was available or not, and even directions to get there! What more could you want.
Although that was the…
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Featured Startup General
If you have any thing to do with entrepreneurship, its impossible you have not come across Jawwad Farid either in person or in virtual world of his blogs and judging different events realting to startups in Pakistan. He is also the author of Reboot which we reviewed a while back.
Jawwad has been writing on Finance, Risk and Treasury for some time now on learning corporate finance.
I guess that has lead to FourQuants.com. FourQuants helps people understand concepts related to finance. Following topics are mentioned in about us section of the website
- Risk management
- Derivatives products
- Option pricing models
- Basel and capital adequacy regulation
- Financial modeling
- Treasury
…
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Coffee Session General Marketing/Adv
OLX is a global online retailer and auction site. They have an impressive footprint in a little less than 100 countries, each with their own specific domain (like .pk for Pakistan and .in for India).
In Pakistan they have been operating under olx.com.pk for some time with people using it to sell things online.
Recently they have started advertising heavily on Television, a medium seldom used by online businesses previously. The ads (two of which have appeared ) are witty and fun to watch.
The most important factor of these adds is that they are being advertised on media which previously none of our online businesses have used.
Most of…
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General
Round 1 of TiE is about to reach its completion on 22nd of Jan, 2012 at Marriott, Islamabad in which ten teams will participate. Four teams will be shortlisted for the level 2. I also had the opportunity to participate in TiE All Asia Business Plan Competition 2012 along with my team members in the first few stages of level 1. Although we didn’t have the chance to go beyond stage1 but just participating helped us understand our own idea better and to polish our proposed technique along with development of a solid business plan. TiE all Asia Business Plan Competition provides a platform for generation and development of new…
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Announcements General Mobile Apps Software & I.T.
TenPearls has announced the successful delivery of mobile apps for Dawn.com on multiple platforms, including Apple iOS (iPad and iPhone), Android and Symbian (Nokia). The mobile apps have received great feedback from the users from around the world. It may be worth mentioning here that DAWN.COM is the #1 English News website from Pakistan averaging over 16 million page views a month, and 3.1 million unique visitors from around the world.
More details can be accessed at mobile apps for Dawn Media Group by TenPearls.
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General
CIO Pakistan started blog awards last year. Its is a good sign when some one takes initiative and starts some thing new. However its also difficult to introduce this into an already budding field of new media in Pakistan. Last years (or two years back now since its 2012) Awards were initiated so as it is expected it faced initial growing up pains. It always takes time for such thing to wins the trust of the community. And bloggers are one of the most hard people to win over, most of these are rebels in their own rights people who have started blogging to show the world their opinion…
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Featured Startup General
Pakreport.org a tool which was instrumental in gathering statistics during the massive flooding in Pakistan, has created another study/stats gathering tool for our electoral activities. Interestingly its called do we vote
With political scene in Pakistan heating up it provides very valuable information to party supporters and their leaders. A quick look at it shows the all known facts that people in rural areas take their voting more seriously than all of us supposedly educated and enlightened urban population.
Pakreport.org was an initiative launched by Faisal Chohan of BrightSpyre during the floods, the effort enabled people on the ground to send sms (the most spread out communication medium in country)…
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Featured Startup General
This is a revelation that came to me when I recently quit my comfy corporate job for the second time. If you are below 40 and some one asks you about how is your job going and your answer is not in tune of “I like my job because I love the work”.
You need to pause and asses your career, last time I answered this question my answer was “I like the job, because the benefits are good”, and that made me think (offcourse there were other factors as well). But if you are doing a job in which to satisfy your own self you have to look at…
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The discussions and debates about an apparent slow down in the Pakistani telecom sector are in full bloom these days. While the telecom growth has certainly taken a nosedive and indicators prove this assumption but what would be its impacts on a common Pakistani and more importantly on thousands of people who depend on telecom sector for their bread and butter? This is a question that needs to be answered as we mostly look at the bigger picture with telecom professionals in mind.The increased call tariffs and heavy taxation on balance uploads/mobile cards has badly affected the vendors. I recently had a discussion with some of mobile cards vendors in Islamabad and they opined that their sales have seen a slump of almost 25%-30%. Same is the case with cell phone vendors as the prices are climbing due to devaluation of Pakistani rupee. The decline in business has resulted in job cuts in some instances. These guys get very nominal salaries but still were earning something for their families. If the telecom growth comes to a stagnation point then a massive unemployment among these folks is a writing on the wall.We don’t have exact statistics of people working in telecom related professions (am referring to vendors, cell phone technicians and not telecom professionals) but rough estimates put their numbers at around 100,000 – 120,000. In most of the cases, these people are sole bread winners of their family thus the number of affectees of telecom meltdown will be in millions if there is a major telecom boom burst in Pakistan.There will not be a total crash in Pakistani telecom sector but the growth will remain on a lower end. This means that with the passage of time at least half of these vendors will have to close their businesses resulting in unemployment of 50,000 to 60,000 workers and financial crisis for half a million people (considering the impacts on their families).Can we avoid this from happening? I guess we can’t as the process of ‘natural selection’ is necessary in the telecom sector due to its over saturation. The telecom boom provided job opportunities for thousands of illiterate and semi-illiterate guys and it still is quite common that a guy who has nothing to do lands in a mobile shop. But that would not be the case in future. We have to think some alternatives about these folks otherwise expect a rise in the already high crime rates.
10:09 am
Fraud activities – tricking user into buying airtime and sending it over through SMS/USSD and hope of winning rewards – is on the rise.
BTW – I wouldn’t call it meltdown. The sector continues to grow at twice the GDP even with high pressure of taxes and overall economic situation
12:30 pm
Faraz,
Let’s say it a meltdown in the making
The saturation point is fast approaching and coupled with the economic crisis, we can expect a telecom bust here. Anyways let’s see what future has in store.
5:57 pm
I allow the author and G&W to use the image at my page (incidentally shot by my very self) to use the image without assigning the credits
6:44 pm
Sorry about that T – maybe I’ve been away from the blog for too long but I missed that.
10:05 am
Sorry Tee…
11:41 pm
Last month I paid 800 Rs. tax on mobile phone bill of Rs. 3200.
I bet it is going to renovate parliament house and presidential palace.
8:16 am
To Farzal:
If those committing fraud are content providers registered with the operator — you should file a complaint with the Telecom operator. If they do what is called spoofing — i.e. illegally using somebody’s number to spam people — also complain. We provide a solution that stops such illegal use of the SMS/USSD gateway.
Ivan
10:11 pm
Furosemide is used for: Treating fluid build-up and swelling caused by congestive heart failure, liver cirrhosis, or kidney disease. It is also used in combination with other medicines to treat fluid build-up in the lungs. http://furosemide.wikispaces.com
9:15 am
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1:11 am
Pakistan cellular growth has slowed down as it has started reaching a saturation point. All (except Zong)carriers have developed their infrastructures and a lot of capital is sunk.
These infrastructures can now be used to expand Wireless Broadband (WiMAX or LTE)
Total market size is 100M considering, from 160M population 30% are below the age of 10, means 50M, are not in potential user caregory. The growth of cellular subscribers will be 8-10% a year from here-on.
It is expected that there will be mergers and business diversification or adding new product lines to remain viable and profitable in telecom business.
Mergers will happen in next 12-24 months in and nationwide cellular and Broadband carriers to become unified carriers.
1. Mobilink will remain as #1 and has Linkdotnet with WiMAX as BB service provider.
2. Zong with a cash rich parent- China Telecom, will acquire smaller BB players. Once LTE is launched in 2010, and IF China mobile launches it in China, it will also be launched in Pakistan. The BB decision will not be local.
3. Ufone/PTCL will survive because as 25% stake is owned by Etisalat. It is hoped that PTCL fixed line infrastructure under renovation now will improve and remain a dominating fixed telephony operation with 4-5M lines. Once last mile is renovated they will control 50% of BB market. Etisalat may like to expand market share in PTCL to atleast 51%.
4. Warid+Wateen has the deadly combination, that is if they can expand BB market size and improve broadband quality.
Wateen has the advantage of local loop infrastructure in four cities (at-least) and has to expand before Augere, Wi-tribe and Linkdotnet expand their markets and drown them.
Wateen has the advantage in OFC operations to become a alternate carriers-carrier competing with PTCL if they expand their metro networks in four provinces.
4. Telenor will have to expand into broadband to survive.
5. Regional players will also survive with thier agile infrastructures like worldcall and Multinet.
Remember telecom is a core infrastructure, and their utility is not just in direct customers, but vertical markets like power and gas companies, railways, local governments etc etc….
4:51 pm
Çäðàâñòâóéòå,óâàæàåìûé áóäóùèé ïîñåòèòåëü íàøåãî ñàéòà.Íè äëÿ êîãî íå ñåêðåò,÷òî äëÿ çàðàáîòêà â èíòåðíåòå,âû äîëæíû áûòü îáëàäàòåëåì ñàéòà.Ñîçäàíèå ñàéòà è åãî ðàñêðóòêà ýòî äëèòåëüíûé ïðîöåññ,íî èíòåðåñíûé è óâëåêàòåëüíûé.Âû êîíå÷íî æå ïîíèìàåòå,÷òî íèêòî íå ñäåëàåò Âàì ñàéò ëó÷øå,÷åì âû.Âîò òóò Âàì è ïðèãîäèòñÿ íàø ñàéò,ñ ëó÷øèìè ïðîãðàììàìè èíòåðíåòà,êîòîðûå áóäóò ïîñòîÿííî îáíîâëÿòüñÿ.Âñå ñàìîå ëó÷øåå äëÿ Âàñ ñîáðàííû íà ýòîì ñàéòå.
Çäåñü ìîæíî íàéòè ñàìûå ïîïóëÿðíûå ïðîãðàììû ðàñêðóòêè ñàéòà,êîòîðûå íàõîäÿòñÿ â òîïàõ ïðîäàæ íà ñàìûõ ðåéòèíãîâûõ òîðãîâûõ ïëîùàäêàõ.Êîëè÷åñòâî áåñïëàòíûõ ïðîãðàìì òàêæå áóäåò ïîñòîÿííî ïîïîëíÿòüñÿ.Äëÿ âàñ áóäóò âûêëàäûâàòüñÿ ñàìûå ðåéòèíãîâûå ïðîãðàììû è êíèãè,ñêðèïòû,áàçû êàòàëîãîâ, åìåéë è ôîðóìîâ.Âñå òî,÷åãî âû íå ñìîæåòå íàéòè èëè áåñïëàòíî ñêà÷àòü â èíòåðíåòå.