Airtel is the new winner of Opensignal's Download Speed Experience award in India. Our users on Airtel clocked the fastest overall mobile download speeds in India — 13.6 Mbps, on average — which were 0.3-0.6 Mbps faster than the speeds users saw on Vi and Jio and 10.6 Mbps faster than on last-placed BSNL.

https://www.opensignal.com/reports/2022/10/india/mobile-network-exp...

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With average download speeds of 11.4 Mbps, Zong users saw the fastest Download Speed Experience in Pakistan — 0.7 Mbps ahead of Jazz. The gap between Zong and other operators varied significantly, ranging from 19.3% with third-placed Ufone to a staggering 204.6% over the speeds experienced by our Telenor users. However, Ufone is faster in terms of 4G Download Speed, with scores averaging 15.7 Mbps.

https://www.opensignal.com/reports/2022/08/pakistan/mobile-network-...

Kalsoom Lakhani
@kalsoom82
1/Happy 2023! Our Insights team at
@Invest2Innovate
put out of a 2022 EOY roundup re: Pakistan startup funding space, a much deeper dive into what happened this past year that looks at overall trends. I'll give some broad takeaways but u can find it here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-Og0XefqLvdiQE3hnwApuuqJuneWj9JC/view

In 2023, the funding slowdown will likely continue, though our belief is that good companies with
strong business models (i.e., not burning lots of cash indefinitely) will still be able to raise in the
coming year. Valuations will also go down to match the Pakistan market realities, which will be
necessary given the waning international investor appetite. If you're a founder, focus on executing,
and if you need to raise, be mindful that it may take longer than it would have in 2021.

Global Innovation Index 2022


https://www.wipo.int/edocs/pubdocs/en/wipo-pub-2000-2022-section3-e...


Pakistan is a prominent climber in the GII 2022 ranking, entering the top 90 at 87th place.
This year, Indonesia, Uzbekistan and Pakistan entered the group of Innovation Achievers
for the first time by performing above expectation on innovation for their level of economic
development (see Table 3 and Figure 11).
Sixteen out of the 25 economies from Sub-Saharan Africa covered this year improved their
ranking. Botswana took the biggest leap forward, reaching 86th position, and in so doing
overtaking Kenya (88th) among the top 3 for the region. Other notable improvers within the
region are Mauritius (45th), Ghana (95th), Namibia (96th) and Senegal (99th). South Africa remains
unchanged in 61st place – and continuing to fail to improve consistently over time.

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Middle-income economies China, Türkiye and India continue to change the
innovation landscape; others like the Islamic Republic of Iran and Indonesia show
promising potential
Apart from group leaders China, Bulgaria and Malaysia, Türkiye (37th) and India (40th) are the two
other middle-income economies to make it into the top 40. Thailand (43rd), Mauritius (45th), the
Russian Federation (47th), Viet Nam (48th) and Romania (49th) make into the top 50, but with only
Mauritius moving up the ranking this year.
Among the middle-income group, the Islamic Republic of Iran (53rd) and Indonesia (75th) have
notably improved their ranking, not only this year but also over the past decade, and join Türkiye,
Viet Nam and the Philippines (59th) in having an increasingly important potential for transforming
the global innovation landscape.
Morocco (67th) has shown innovation potential for a number of years, whereas Pakistan (87th) and
Cambodia (97th) are also starting to show signs of increased innovation potential.
India overtakes Viet Nam as leader of the lower middle-income group (Table 2). It continues to lead
the world in the ICT services exports indicator (1st) and hold top rankings in other indicators, including
Venture capital recipients’ value (6th), Finance for startups and scaleups (8th), Graduates in science and
engineering (11th), Labor productivity growth (12th) and Domestic industry diversification (14th).

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However, there is change too this year. Indonesia (75th), Uzbekistan (82nd) and Pakistan (87th) are
Innovation Achievers in 2022 for the first time ever. For these three economies, this achievement
coincides with an important shift in their rankings of between four and 12 positions. In addition,
Jamaica (76th), Jordan (78th), Zimbabwe (107th), Mozambique (123rd) and Burundi (130th) all make it
back into the select group of Innovation Achievers for 2022. Brazil (54th), the Islamic Republic of
Iran (53rd) and Peru (65th) keep their achiever status for a second consecutive year. These three
economies also gain between three and seven positions in the rankings, with Brazil moving
forward since 2019. In 2022, Brazil makes marked improvements in innovation outputs, notably in
Creative outputs, including in Intangible assets and Online creativity, as well as in the indicators
Trademarks (19th) and Mobile app creation (34th).


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Relative to 2021, 27 economies switched performance groups. Four economies raised their performance
status from below expectation to matching expectation, namely, Sri Lanka (85th), Bangladesh (102nd),
Ethiopia (117th) and Yemen (128th). Conversely, 12 economies fell back from matching expectation to
come below expectation, half of them the Latin America and Caribbean economies of Uruguay (64th),
Paraguay (91st), Ecuador (98th), El Salvador (100th), Guatemala (110th) and Honduras (113th).

Increasing optic fibre penetration
IT benefits cannot be enjoyed unless country has robust telecom infrastructure

https://tribune.com.pk/story/2373645/increasing-optic-fibre-penetra...

One measure of optic fibre penetration in a country is the percentage of towers connected with the fibre. In Pakistan, it is 10%. For comparison, in Thailand, it is about 90%, in Malaysia about 50%, in India about 30%, and in Bangladesh 27%.

In Pakistan, every city is connected with optic fibres, and thanks to the efforts of PTA (obligating new/ renewal of fixed-line licensees to lay fibre cables) and USF (obligating subsidy winners to lay fibres), the fibres connecting cities and villages are increasing. But fibre penetration is poor within smaller towns and relatively less affluent localities of larger cities.

In Islamabad, many streets have up to three optic fibres buried in parallel (where only one would more than suffice). In contrast, large Mohallahs even in the neighbouring Rawalpindi have no optic fibres.

This is understandable, as all fibre investors are Internet Service Providers (ISPs) who must fiercely compete with each other. They cannot share the capacity of their fibres. They would rather lay their own fibres.

Consequently, the fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) in Pakistan is very low. Out of 119 million broadband subscriptions, only 2 million are fibre connected. It reflects negatively on Pakistan’s ranking on various global indices, where Pakistan is lagging behind all the regional countries (except Afghanistan).

A significant cause of low overall performance is also the unusually high telecom taxes, and the process and cost of Right of Way (RoW). Telecom operators have been clamouring for the government to address these for years. Addressing these demands would undoubtedly speed up investments.

Still, where every ISP has to lay its own fibres, it may take another 25 to 30 years to serve a considerable part of the population.

Good things come to those who wait and for Pakistan’s tech ecosystem, the wait finally seemed to be over in 2021. Funding surged over 5x to $366 million and tech exports crossed $2 billion. Big shot investors entered the market, things were on the go and optimism was all abound.

https://www.dawn.com/news/1729409

But that cliched saying doesn’t really mention anything about good things lasting, and that’s exactly what happened in 2022. Despite a solid start which saw almost $173m raised in Q1, investment activity plunged and reached a 10-quarter low. The annual total still came in at over a healthy $351m, but the slowdown was glaringly obvious.

The change in global macros and the subsequent carnage in venture capital cut short the newfound love for Pakistani startups among foreign investors, as the country’s risk premium became too high for the available return potential. The doomsday peddlers and default mongers would tell you this might be the end of a rather short-lived era. And perhaps we might not return to the 2021-2022 levels, but would still stay reasonably above our 2020 total of around $65m.

However, for the near future, the deal flow will remain depressed, especially for relatively later-stage startups — as per Pakistani standards, those looking for Series A or further. Based on this criteria, there are at least 14 companies that might need to raise follow-on rounds soon (ignoring all those who had seed deals in 2021). For the remaining, the deals might still continue, albeit at much lower valuations and at a slower pace.

One reason to believe that while investment value plunged by a massive 79 per cent year-on-year in Q4-2022, the deal count fell by relatively less to eight. That too because a number of investment rounds actually went unreported and the small base amplifies the decline in percentage terms. The source of early-stage capital could tilt towards accelerators, whose $100,000-$250,000 cheques might have seemed like peanuts to some founders during the good times.

That said, the cycles do change, even if the gloom today might not seem like it, as did the optimism from last year. Markets often have amnesia and move on sentiments — which will improve sooner or later. Well, at least as far as the global macros are concerned, if not Pakistan’s. Beyond the venture funding environment — which honestly takes up an outsize share in tech-related discussion — there is one missed theme from 2022. One that is a little concerning.

In Q1-2021, Pakistan’s digitally paid e-commerce transactions fell to 9.1m, from 136m in the preceding period. While the number did recover to over 10.1m in the second quarter, it still spells trouble, especially considering how our macroeconomic situation worsened from July onwards. For example, inflation peaked in August and the past few months have been marred by complete chaos for anyone trying to run a business. It’s not just the data. Market talks paint a pretty bleak picture as major e-commerce stores see declines in orders. Last year, the situation was the exact opposite — almost everyone struggled to keep up with the demand and supply squeezed. Now, the players are reportedly sitting on excess capacity, which has its own overheads, or trying to renegotiate terms with partners.

According to Hammad Khan, the co-founder of AlphaVenture — the digital agency behind the price comparison website Pakistanistores.com, sales have declined around 10-15pc this year compared to 2021 despite more people coming online. “Even though our website traffic went up 5pc year-on-year in November 2022, it hasn’t necessarily translated into more orders for stores as major players in the industry are having a relatively slower period.”

“But more than demand, supply has been the issue as almost all sectors — regardless of online or traditional channels — struggle to source products. If companies cannot source products in the first place, how are they even going to fulfil orders?”