Telenor Pakistan chooses Telenor Connexion as IoT partner

Pakistan, the world’s fifth-most populous country, is experiencing a booming web development and tech sector with a rapidly growing number of startups and incubators. IoT, internet of things, is getting an increased focus due to its ability to leapfrog advancements in critical areas such as water management, energy and agriculture.

After a thorough evaluation of a handful of IoT suppliers, Telenor Pakistan decided to go with Telenor Connexion whose IoT platform will now be available to the Pakistan IoT ecosystem of startups and partners.

“Telenor Pakistan has been leading the market in innovation, for example in financial services and agriculture services. Now we want to take lead on the IoT development too, exploring the possibilities in this area and help building the IoT ecosystem in Pakistan”, said Waqar Nayyar, Head of IoT at Telenor Pakistan.

Examples of IoT applications in Pakistan are solar-powered home solutions enabling rural households outside of the grid to power TV sets, mobile phone chargers and other electronic devices. Thanks to Telenor’s billing system, the provider of the solution can charge users a monthly fee instead of demanding an upfront cash payment. Other application areas are OBD (on-board diagnostics) devices for fleet management or IoT solutions integrated with insurance products to reduce the large number of motorcycle thefts.

“Telenor Connexion offers a cost-effective, flexible and scalable solution, which is a prerequisite for a high growth market like Pakistan”, said Waqar Nayyar. “Also, factors such as brand equity and reliability are important for customers to minimize risks and liability. With a connectivity solution like this we enable Pakistani companies to connect locally with our existing customers, including over two million farmers using our agri services, as well as growing internationally due to Telenor Connexion’s global network.”

“Asia shows the highest growth it IoT deployments, both in percentage and absolute numbers. And it’s not just China but also countries such as Indonesia, Korea and Taiwan. While the IoT development has come further in more mature markets, we now start seeing very interesting opportunities in high growth markets in Asia as well as in other regions of the world”, said Jesper Lagerstedt, Partner Manager at Telenor Connexion.