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Category: IT & Telecom

Explore IT and Telecom stories with Pakistan Revenue, your go-to source for the latest updates on Pakistan’s technology and telecom sector. Stay ahead with real-time industry insights and economic developments.

  • PTCL declares 39% growth in half year net profit

    PTCL declares 39% growth in half year net profit

    KARACHI: Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL) on Monday declared 39 per cent growth in its net profit for the half year ended June 30, 2022.

    According to half yearly financial results submitted to Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX), the after tax profit of the country grew to Rs5.2 billion during the period January 01, 2022 to June 30, 2022 as compared with Rs3.74 billion in the same period of the last year.

    READ MORE: PTCL registers eight-year high revenue growth

    The announcement of financial results was made at the board of directors meeting held on July 18, 2022 at PTCL headquarters in Islamabad.

    The board has not approved cash dividend, bonus shares, right shares or another entitlement.

    The revenue of the company during the half year under review increased to around Rs40 billion as compared with Rs38.19 billion in the same half of the last year.

    The cost of service also increased to Rs31.52 billion as compared with Rs29.50 billion.

    READ MORE: PTCL Group wins GDEIB award in five categories

    Therefore, the gross profit of the company eased to Rs8.46 billion for the half year ended June 30, 2022 as compared with Rs8.69 billion in the same half last year.

    Administrative expenses of the company increased to Rs3.89 billion for the period as compared with Rs3.53 billion.

    Operating profit of PTCL fell to Rs1.89 billion during the half year under review as compared with Rs2.80 billion in the same half of the last year.

    However, under the head of other income, PTCL recorded massive growth to Rs6.03 billion during the period January 01, 2022 to June 30, 2022 when compared with Rs2.6 billion in the same period of the last year.

    READ MORE: PTCL registers 7.3% revenue growth for nine months

    This translated the profit before tax to Rs7.74 billion for the half year January – June 2022 as compared with Rs5.26 billion in the same period of the last year.

    The company made provision of Rs2.55 billion income tax for the half year as compared with Rs1.52 billion in the same half of the last year.

    The consolidated results of PTCL revealed a net loss of Rs3.05 billion for the half year ended June 30, 2022 as compared with the profit of Rs2.93 billion in the same period of the last year.

    READ MORE: PTCL, Dell to launch Azure Services in Pakistan

  • Forbes China includes Xiaomi in best employers list

    Forbes China includes Xiaomi in best employers list

    BEIJING: Xiaomi, a global technology leader and the third largest smartphone manufacturer has been named one of the top ten employers by Forbes China.

    READ MORE: Xiaomi joins hands with SELECT for phone production

    Xiaomi had 33,000 full-time employees worldwide at the end of last year. Other companies on the list include Schneider Electric, Hitachi Energy, Bank of China, etc.

    Forbes China made its selection after surveying 70,000 people over three months. The survey, which involved multiple topics, was conducted by Forbes China and Russell Consulting Company.

    READ MORE: Xiaomi plans assembly plant in Pakistan

    Xiaomi was listed as one of the “World’s Best Employers 2021” by Forbes. It was also ranked No. 4 on the list of “China’s Most Attractive Employers” for engineering students by Universum.

    Xiaomi prides itself on maintaining best practices for recruitment, employment, and employee benefits. According to the Company’s Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Report last year, Xiaomi was free of unfair labor practices or gender discrimination.

    READ MORE: Clearance of mobile phones: Customs valuation of 234 brands, models issued

    “Xiaomi is pleased and honored to be recognized for our employment practices,” said Wang Xiang, Partner and President of Xiaomi Group. “We recruit talent from around the world and give our employees the best opportunity we can to unleash their creativity to make products that improve the world. Xiaomi is committed to operating at the highest standards and protecting the rights of our employees.”

  • Twitter moves court against Musk for breaching $44bn deal

    Twitter moves court against Musk for breaching $44bn deal

    Twitter Inc. on Tuesday reportedly filed a case against Elon Musk, the CEO Tesla Inc. for cancelling $44 billion purchase deal.

    The Twitter filed case against Elon Musk in the Delaware Court of Chancery to hold Musk to pay the amount of $44 billion for the deal of Twitter.

    READ MORE: Ufone increases rates amid rising inflation

    The CEO of Tesla, Inc., Elon Musk decides to terminate the $44 billion deal to buy Twitter claiming about the multiple violations in the agreement.

    Elon Musk claimed that the deal of purchasing Twitter was canceled because the Twitter breached the deal by failing to hand over data. He demanded that the number of bots and spam accounts on the platform should be evaluated.

    READ MORE: Jazz invests Rs14.9 billion during first quarter

    The legal experts said that the dispute could result in the involvement of judge forcing Musk to complete the deal or forcing him to pay a $1 billion breakup fee, or other scenarios including a settlement, renegotiation of the purchase price, or even Musk walking away without paying anything.

    In May, Musk said that the deal was “temporarily on hold” as he was waiting for the dates on the number of fake and spam accounts on Twitter.

    READ MORE: FBR proposed to exempt withholding tax on telecom services

    The billionaire businessman had asked for evidence to back the company’s assertion that spam and bot accounts make up less than 5% of its total users.

    In a letter filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Musk’s lawyer said that the Twitter had failed or refused to provide this information.

    According to the letter: “Sometimes Twitter has ignored Mr. Musk’s requests, sometimes it has rejected them for reasons that appear to be unjustified, and sometimes it has claimed to comply while giving Mr. Musk incomplete or unusable information.”

  • Hysab Kytab signed partnership with Winikon

    Hysab Kytab signed partnership with Winikon

    KARACHI: Hysab Kytab – a leading FinTech that offers a suite of financial management solutions has signed partnership with Winikon – IT services company specialized in the banking business to enhance the banking experience of customers.

    This collaboration will help in providing individual-level personalized financial management products and services to banking customers.

    READ MORE: CMOs worry over power outages, 100% cash margin on imports

    The partnership between Winikon and Hysab Kytab will facilitate banking customers to manage their finances more efficiently and securely.

    It will improve the banking experience, and better money management and help the customers proactively manage their finances.

    READ MORE: Ufone increases rates amid rising inflation

    CEO at Winikon, Viktor Weininger said ’’Winikon is serving Temenos Transact clients backed up with 15+ years of experience in Temenos ecosystem. PFM is a key element of digital transformation as mobile is the most essential touchpoint with banking clients nowadays. I’m delighted to onboard Hysab Kytab as our partner. Through our partnership with Hysab Kytab, we are offering a best-of-breed, innovative PFM solution integrated with Transact”

    READ MORE: All tax proposals of IT sector accepted: FBR

    Head of Hysab Kytab, Yasir Ilyas said “Hysab Kytab’s PFM is available at Temenos Exchange (Temenos Marketplace) as pre-integrated with Infinity and Transact for global customers. As a product company our expansion/scale strategy demands finding well reputed partners that have track record of successful projects. This partnership with Winikon is key for our scale strategy and I look forward to creating success together with Winikon”

    READ MORE: Jazz, Telenor seek reduction in taxation

  • CMOs worry over power outages, 100% cash margin on imports

    CMOs worry over power outages, 100% cash margin on imports

    KARACHI: Cellular Mobile Operators (CMOs) are worried over continuous power outages and imposition of 100 per cent cash margin on import of certain phone equipment.

    The CMOs in a letter to Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) highlighted certain issues that were hampering the quality of service (QoS).

    READ MORE: Ufone increases rates amid rising inflation

    They said that CMOs as some of the leading corporate entities of the country and law abiding licensees of the authority have always strived to comply to all applicable License conditions, rules and regulations including provision of requisite level of quality, network and service availability.

    The CMOs highlighted some critical economy-wide factors which are directly impeding and are expected to further severely constrain the operators’ ability to meet the existing QoS obligations/performance KPIs as well as our Network Rollout Obligations under the new License conditions.

    READ MORE: All tax proposals of IT sector accepted: FBR

    They said the current electricity shortfall, which is increasing with every passing day, is causing unplanned and prolonged load shedding nationwide especially in rural areas. Despite having backup power available in the form of generators/batteries, cellular operators are still finding it almost impossible to cope with the quantum of these power outages that are beyond our dimensioned backup capacity.

    Moreover, the rapidly escalating fuel prices are not only placing extra constraints on provision of generators backup for our BTS sites, round the clock. This extra fuel consumption for back up purposes is also contributing to further demand for fuel rather than supporting the government objective of rationalizing fuel consumption across the board in these testing times. Considering the current situation, maintaining network availability and delivering QoS performance KPIs have become a massive challenge for the CMOs.

    READ MORE: Jazz, Telenor seek reduction in taxation

    In addition, recent increase in Letter of Credit (LC) cash margin on all telecom equipment imports from 10 per cent to 100 per cent by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) also applies to backup batteries.

    Hence the imposition of increased LC cash margin has not only severely dented our ability to rollout more sites in order to meet the licensed QoS requirements, it also drastically impedes addition of more backup capacity to counter these extended power outages.

    READ MORE: Ufone launches contact center for housing loans

    In view of the above highlighted critical issues, we have a very serious apprehension that our licensing QoS KPIs and Network Rollout targets will be further affected. We are taking this opportunity to timely inform PTA and trust that the Authority will take into account the circumstances beyond our control while evaluating the license compliance and enforcement matters.

    They further highlighted the most recent fiscal and political developments have further impacted the already deteriorating health of capital-intensive telecom sector in Pakistan; and in the absence of immediate reversal of adverse directive(s) and elimination of electricity load shedding, the telecom operators would unfortunately be constrained to notify Force Majeure situation under special circumstances, outside the control of the major Telecom service providers of Pakistan.

    READ MORE: PITB, Faysal Bank sign MoU to facilitate freelancers

    The CMOs requested to indulge the Authority with the relevant quarters for favorable decisions in order to enable the telecom industry to keep providing essential telecoms service to the masses.

  • Ufone increases rates amid rising inflation

    Ufone increases rates amid rising inflation

    KARACHI: Ufone, Pakistan’s largest phone service provider, has increased tariff for its various packages.

    In a message sent by the cellular service provider to its customers said: “… to maintain quality of services during ongoing rise in inflation, there will be changes in some of our offers.”

    READ MORE: Ufone 4G ranked top voice and data network

    The rates of following packages have been increased:

    UPower 100, which was of Rs.100 has been increased to Rs.120 with change in resources of addition 1000 SMS in All in One (Option 1) Variant which will be effective from June 28, 2022.

    Super Card Plus, which was of Rs.649 has been increased to Rs.699 which will be effective from June 29, 2022. The resources are same as previous.

    READ MORE: Ufone signs Rs21 billion agreement for 4G spectrum

    Super Card Gold, which was of Rs.999 has been increased to Rs.1099 with change of resources of addition 100 Off-Net minutes and 2GB Main volume and 2 GB Social Volume (1 GB FB and 1 GB WA) which will be effective from June 29, 2022.

    READ MORE: Ufone launches contact center for housing loans

  • All tax proposals of IT sector accepted: FBR

    All tax proposals of IT sector accepted: FBR

    ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has said all pressing demands of IT sector have been accepted in the budget 2022/2023.

    In a statement issued on Monday, the FBR has taken an exception to a statement issued by Pakistan Software Houses Association (P@SHA) dated June 25, 2022.

    It has reported some facts regarding the exemptions/tax incentives / facilitation given to the IT and IT enabled export services through the Federal Budget 2022, tabled in the National Assembly on June 10, 2022.

    READ MORE: Pakistan’s salaried class unhappy over new tax changes

    Clarifying its position, FBR has stated that in the wake of the Budget, some important meetings were held with the representatives of IT sector through Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB) and also with Federal Minister for IT, Syed Amin-Ul-Haque, and his team. During these meetings, almost all the key demands of the IT Sector were thoroughly deliberated and largely agreed. 

    FBR has further clarified that the amended Finance Bill will incorporate some tangible measures to facilitate the exporters of IT and IT enabled services. Almost all the pressing demands of the IT Sector have been accepted. The same have been announced in the speech by the Federal Finance Minister on 24th June, 2022 on the floor of the National Assembly. 

    These include the following six key concessions:

    READ MORE: Pakistan reduces salary tax slabs to 7 in budget 2022/23

    i) The sector has been provided a reduced tax rate of 0.25% on their export proceeds which is a quarter of the 1% export tax rate provided to all other exporters of goods. 

    ii) The sector has been removed from tax credit regime to simplify the tax filing system and to remove hassles of compliance that were earlier required to make them eligible for 100% tax credit to claim tax exemption.

    iii) The requirements of filing of Withholding Tax Statements and Sales Tax return have been liberalized for the sector and only those who are required under the law will file WHT Statements or the Sales Tax Returns. For individuals having turnover up to Rs. 100 m per year there is no requirement to file WHT Statement or to deduct tax. 

    READ MORE: Pakistan reduces salary tax slabs to 7 in budget 2022/23

    iv) The definition of IT and IT enabled services as provided under the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001 has been liberalized by expanding its scope by making suitable amendments and all inclusive, and “not limited to” definition has been provided. 

    v) IT and IT enabled services exporters have been provided the facility of obtaining Sales Tax refund in respect of any Sales Tax that has been paid as their input on computers, laptops, stationary other items etc. This facility is not available under the Provincial Sales Tax Law.

    vi) The demand of the IT Sector of reviving tax exemption for Venture Capital Fund has been accepted and a new provision has been created for providing Income Tax Exemption to the Venture Capital Fund for three years. 

    READ MORE: Massive cut in subsidies to curtail current expenditures

    It is pertinent to mention that the above exemptions and tax facilitations to boost exports of IT and IT enabled services were agreed and discussed in the meetings with the Federal Minister for IT, Syed Amin-Ul-Haque, and the representatives of the PSEB. It appears that the above statement given by P@SHA is on account of lack of information about the outcome of the decisions taken by the Honorable Finance Minister in that meeting and announced accordingly.

  • Jazz, Telenor seek reduction in taxation

    Jazz, Telenor seek reduction in taxation

    ISLAMABAD: Phone carriers in Pakistan including Jazz and Telenor have sought reduction in taxation.

    Federal Minister for Finance and Revenue Miftah Ismail held a meeting with delegation of telecom sector comprising of CEO Jazz Aamir Ibrahim and CEO Telenor Pakistan Irfan Wahab Khan, at Finance Division on Wednesday.

    Federal Minister for IT and Telecommunication Syed Amin-ul-Haq, Chairman Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), Chairman Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) and other senior officers attended the meeting.

    The delegation briefed the finance minister on the contribution of IT sector in the economic development of Pakistan.

    READ MORE: PITB, Faysal Bank sign MoU to facilitate freelancers

    It was shared that currently IT and Telecommunication sector is facing various issues including serious challenge of profitability.

    In same view, the delegation requested for reduction in taxation over the items that hardly fall under purview of luxury goods.

    It was also shared that growth of IT and telecommunication not only contributes in increasing the exports but also in overall growth of GDP.

    READ MORE: FBR establishes IT center against cyber security attacks

    The finance minister acknowledged the role of IT and Telecommunication in overall economic development of the country.

    Moreover, the Finance Minister assured the delegation of all possible support regarding taxation issues and emphasized to make greater contribution in enhancement of IT and Telecom related exports.

    The delegation thanked the finance minister for support and cooperation.

  • PITB, Faysal Bank sign MoU to facilitate freelancers

    PITB, Faysal Bank sign MoU to facilitate freelancers

    LAHORE: Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB) and Faysal Bank Limited (FBL) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to facilitate freelancers across Pakistan.

    The ceremony of agreement signing was held at Arfa Technology Park on Wednesday June 1, 2022. The MoU was signed by PITB DG e-Governance Sajid Latif and FBL Head CIBG Ali Waqar on behalf of their respective organizations.

    Senior officials from both organizations including PITB’s JD Freelancing Wing Ahmed Islam, State Bank of Pakistan’s Senior Officer Ali Atta, and Payoneer’s Country Manager Mohsin Muzaffar and Partnerships Manager Affaf Noor were also present.

    According to the MoU, PITB and Faysal Bank would collaborate to support endeavors and activities of mutual interest for the facilitation of freelancers by offering them a “Digital Freelancer Account”.

    READ MORE: FBR establishes IT center against cyber security attacks

    In particular, FBL would provide the Digital Freelancer Account to existing and to-be PITB graduates as well as sponsor different events organized by PITB related to digital technology, youth empowerment, and freelancing ecosystem.

    Besides many other benefits, FBL would also give laptops to the top performer and mobile phones to the second and third top performers of each batch as an appreciation of emerging freelancers. Furthermore, FBL would market and give partner privilege to PITB owing to the organization’s large freelancers’ base across Pakistan (alumni and trainees).

    PITB is committed to providing work opportunities and imparting digital skills to freelancers across Punjab through various initiatives. Over the last year, PITB has extended its support nationwide through endeavors for aspiring entrepreneurs and freelancers hailing from diverse social backgrounds. PITB’s freelancing initiatives are catering both men and women alike, training them to be economically empowered.

  • FBR establishes IT center against cyber security attacks

    FBR establishes IT center against cyber security attacks

    ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has established a Security Operation Center (SOC) in order to prevent cyber security attacks on its IT system.

    FBR Chairman Asim Ahmad inaugurated the SOC on Tuesday.

    SOC is a state-of-the-art center designed for prevention, detection, and incident response against cyber security attacks on the FBR IT network.

    This most modern digital intervention has been made operational round-the-clock (24x7x365). It is powered by the world’s leading automated solutions and tools for cyber security incident monitoring, inspection for malware and ransomware attacks, data backup/recovery solutions, software vulnerabilities scanning, IT infrastructure penetration testing, and performance monitoring. It is pertinent to mention that these multiple security controls have already been implemented at FBR with sophisticated firewalls, intrusion detection systems, security orchestration and response capability, email threats security, database security, web browser security and end-user security awareness.

    Dr. Ashfaq Ahmad Tunio, Member-IT FBR and Sardar Umar, Secretary IT FBR, briefed the Chairman FBR about its key features and functions.

    He informed that within a short span of 4-5 months, nine different world- class security technology solutions have been procured and implemented or are nearing implementation.

    This robust and high-tech defense-in-depth architecture is a watershed initiative which has inbuilt monitoring mechanisms within the SOC. This has significantly uplifted the security posture of the data and IT network of FBR, he further explained.

    Kamran Meer, the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO)FBR further briefed that a roadmap has been created to implement various other security technology solutions in the coming months to attain a truly world-class posture for FBR in accordance with international best practices, within an overarching Information Security Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) framework.

    He also reiterated that the occurrence of cyber attacks was a norm in heavily IT-enabled organizations such as FBR and the most effective approach to cyber defense was to establish a strong program where cyber risk assessments, risk mitigations, SOC operations and rapid incident response were conducted in repetitive cycles 24x7x365 with oversight and support for resources provided by the highest levels of management.

    While commending the outstanding work done by Member IT and his team, Chairman FBR appreciated the digital intervention as a much-needed facility to firewall the repository of high value data of taxpayers. He expressed his unflinching resolve to further upgrade IT infrastructure of FBR in line with the global best practices. He also hoped that all the Field Formations of FBR will soon be connected with this centralised Security Operations Center(SOC) to implement similar security regime in letter and spirit.