Warid Pakistan

Warid (Arabic: وريد‎‎‎ Urdu: وارد‎) is a GSM, HSPA+ and LTE ^[3] based mobile operator in Pakistan. Warid is the seventh mobile carrier to enter the Pakistani market. It commenced commercial operations in May 23, 2005. Warid is owned by Abu Dhabi Group, which is a business conglomerate in the Middle East and a major investor in Pakistan. It is the first venture of the group in the field of Telecommunication.^[4]

Warid is Pakistan’s fourth largest GSM mobile service provider and fifth largest mobile service in terms of subscriber base of over 12.9 million.^[5] It has a market share of 9% among cellular operators.^[6]

On November 26, 2015 VimpelCom and Dhabi Group agreed to merge Mobilink and Warid into a single company. ^[7] On January 6, 2017 the combined CEO of Mobilink and Warid announced the launch of new brand Jazz.^[8][9] Mobilink ceased to exist on January 10, 2017 whereas Warid as a brand will continue for a year.^[10]

History

Pakistan Telecommunication Authority awarded two mobile telephony licenses to Telenor Pakistan and Space Telecom on April 24, 2004.^[11] The license for Space Telecom was cancelled after it missed a dead line to make a 50% down payment of the offered price. Thereafter PTA offered next highest bid winner company, Warid.^[12]

The license was bid and acquired through parent company of Warid, Abu Dhabi Group led by the then CEO Mr Bashir Tahir for US $291 million.

On May 23, 2005 Warid commercially started operating. Mr Hamid Farooq is appointed as the CEO of the company. Initially it covered 28 major cities of the country, which is so far the largest coverage in the first phase of roll-out by the first investment of US $150 million. Within 80 days, Warid secured 1 million customers with 7% market share.^[13]

In second phase of investment of US $1 billion, Warid launched operations in other cities of Pakistan. It secured another 3.4 million subscribers with 10% market share. First anniversary of Warid marked 9.7 million subscribers.

In 2007, Singapore Telcommunications bought a 30-per cent stake in Warid for about $758 million. That stake purchase gave Warid an enterprise value of about $2.5 billion.

Warid's first CEO Hamid Farooq resigned in November 2007. Mr. Marwan Zawaydeh joined the company as the second CEO. Warid further invested US $1 billion in network expansion by the end of 2009.

Warid got a new CEO Mr. Muneer Farooqi in October 2012.

SingTel sold back that stake in January 2013 for $150 million and a right to receive 7.5 per cent of the net proceeds from any future sale, public offering, or merger of Warid.^[14][15]

Network

Warid has invested more than US $2.5 billion to build up network infrastructure in Pakistan. It has set-up more than 5000 base stations.^[16]

Warid is the sole operator in Pakistan deploying Ericsson as vendor for its network base stations, microwave links, IT support and transmission towers.^[17]

Emitac Mobile Solutions under the terms of a distribution agreement with BlackBerry leverages its global integration services and local presence in the region to provide Warid with end-to-end implementation, launch, delivery and support services for the BlackBerry solution in the Pakistani market.^[18]

Mobile industry body GSMA said Warid Telecom Pakistan achieved energy savings of between 30 and 60 percent during the second Mobile Energy Efficiency (MEE) Optimization project. After rolling out the energy-saving technology across Warid’s network in Pakistan, the annual savings are expected to be more than $6 million and 19,700 tons of carbon dioxide emissions.^[19]

Radio frequency

Next Generation Mobile Services (NGMS)

Warid refrained from participating in next generation spectrum auction in April 2014. Warid launched 4G LTE services in Pakistan by the end of 2014. The Abu Dhabi Group had been in talks with the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, the telecom sector’s regulatory body, for launching LTE service on its existing technology neutral license.^[20]

Number schemeing

Warid uses the following numbering scheme:

+92 3 2 N₁N₂N₃N₄N₅N₆N₇N₈

Where 92 is the ISD code for Pakistan and is required when dialling outside the country, 3 is the mobile access code, and 2 is the prefix for Warid allocated by Pakistan Telecommunication Authority. Omitting +92 would require 0 instead to represent local call, hence 032 is the general prefix and N₁N₂N₃N₄N₅N₆N₇N₈ is the subscriber number.

Marketing

Business centres

Warid business center, Lahore, Pakistan

Warid customer services and sales point

Warid operates 12 business centres, over 350 franchises, 1,000 Warid Supershops, and 200,000 retail customer points nationwide.^[21]

Products

Warid presents prepaid, postpaid, and youth plans branded as zem, zahi, and glow.[18][19][20] Moreover, it also offers data plans and branchless banking.

Originated from an Arabic word meaning fun, zem caters the needs of pay-as-you-go customers. Likewise, zahi means royal or leader and is an array of postpaid tariff plans.

Glow is a youth oriented brand. It offers online content via its portal, which is set-up in collaboration with Arvato. It was launched by Warid Telecom CCO, Mr Ali Tahir.^[22] Its main rival is djuice.

Slogans

Warid has previously used these slogans 'be heard', 'we care', 'zem it!' and 'Life Ka Network' in Pakistan between 2005 and 2008 but has now switched to بات بڑھائے ساتھ meaning talk lasts togetherness and دوستی کے رنگ meaning colours of friendship.^[23]

Awards

On March 14, 2014 Warid received Corporate Social Responsibility Award.^[24]

Corporate social responsibility

Warid has been recognised for corporate social responsibility projects. Some of these include

1. In August 2010, Warid donated PKR 800,000 in University Endowment Fund Trust of Government College University Lahore.
2. Warid has collaborated with Sundas foundation and Pakwheels for blood donation compaign.^[25][26]
3. Warid supports National Polio Immunization drive.
4. In May 2013, Warid donated PKR 1 million to GCU Lahore Endowment Fund Trust.

Mobile banking

On January 1, 2014 Warid in collaboration with Bank Alfalah launched mobile banking service namely 'mobile paisa'. Mobile paisa allows its users to pay utility bills, transfer money to specified recipients anywhere in the country, deposit and withdraw cash and carry out account transfers.

Merger with Mobilink

Warid previously announced its merger with Mobilink in November 2015.^[27] The case was under review at Pakistan telecommunication authority. After scrutiny PTA finally approved the merger in July 2016. The companies plan for integration and becoming a single brand in the coming months.^[28] This merger also resulted in the sharing of network resources, Warid customers can now connect to Mobilink's 3G network^[29] and Mobilink customers to Warid's 4G (LTE) network,^[30] this network roaming between both the operators was enabled in November 2016. In January 2017, Mobilink's CEO, Aamir Ibrahim announced that Warid's journey would come to an end, and that both companies would be launched under a new brand name, called Jazz. ^[31][32][33]

Warid customers will also have to replace their SIM cards at all new Jazz Service Centers, where the SIM card will be provided to all Warid customers free of cost.^[34][35]

See also

• Warid Telecom International
• List of mobile phone companies in Pakistan

References

External links

• Official website