Telenor’s Norwegian CEO Sigve Brekke has said that the business environment in Pakistan poses significant challenges and that is one of the reasons behind the company’s decision to exit the market.
In a recent interview, Brekke highlighted the difficulties of repatriating profits as a critical factor influencing investor decisions to leave the country. However, he contrasted this with Telenor’s situation in Bangladesh, where the company continues to repatriate dividends successfully.
In the past two decades, Telenor invested in Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, and Myanmar.
However, it merged its business in India with Airtel due to several reasons and sold its Myanmar unit after the military junta took over. It also merged its businesses in Thailand and Malaysia.
In December 2023, Telenor announced the sale of its Pakistan operations to Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL).
In contrast, the Telenor CEO said that the company has no plans to pull investment from Bangladesh or merge its Bangladesh unit Grameenphone with others.
“It’s very challenging to do business in Pakistan right now. That’s one of the reasons why we have decided to exit,” Brekke said.
“If an investor cannot repatriate profit from a country, then the investor probably will, over time, leave. But that’s not the case for us in Bangladesh. We are taking out dividends,” he added.
He said that speculations about Grameenphone’s merger or Telenor’s exit from Bangladesh are wrong.
“The reason why we have exited some markets and the reason why we have merged in some markets is that we saw that we need to be prepared for the data growth in these markets. And we saw that we cannot, there is not business enough for basically more than three operators. It was when people were lining up to get their first mobile phone.”
“Then it was enough growth for more than three players. But now that people have a mobile phone, you need to then be able to provide different types of services. And that’s why we saw that in Malaysia and Thailand.”
“We merged so that we got the number one position in the market, 50% market position. That we now have in Thailand, that we now have in Malaysia and that we have in Bangladesh. In Pakistan that was not possible,” he further elaborated.
Stinging
That is some class A BullShit!.
Similar claims were made in every market Telenor exited. Truth us Telenor is consolidating itself to just Nordic Market and will exit Bangladesh as soon as it finds a willing buyer.
Sigve has to say this to keep morale of its only Asian business unit.
Reasons are valid. Even legitimate businesses with decades long history cannot send money abroad for purchase/trade. There are far too many restrictions and hoops to jump through for a business or individual wanting to send money legally.
Our bureaucracy and military (pulling the strings behind the scenes) need to let go of control/NOC Culture and Military Inc Empire for Pakistan and ordinary Pakistanis to prosper.
They have successfully milked Pakistani citizens for over 2 decades and now when they are no more able to extract more. coz of tough competition from competitors, they have decided to pull out.
Tiktok Tiktok Tiktok Tiktok Tiktok Tiktok
If someone and some people could understand what’s coming our way?
Telenor instead of admitting its mistakes, like lack of timely decision making, lack of planning, network expansion and wasting time on cosmetic initiavties and tasks instead of spending time on positive things and customer’s expeience through technology are the main reasons for failure.In a simple word, Telenor does not have the ability to perform in a competitive environment, they are failed to compete with Jazz and Zong and thats why the last entrant company , Zong, would not have been able to overtake them, nor would they have been sold.
where is it monitored from. source of channel or newspaper where this interview was released ??
it’s hard to operate is morally corrupt market. I agree.
in simple word,s Profit was not attractive for investors, due to lake of much needed amendments against telenor competitors in PAKISTAN…That s why telenor leave the country…Whole Nation is witness there was not a single package introduced for telenor user’s against jazz, zong or uphone was given to their customers from last 1 to 2 years almost ….
Grapes are sour….
We are thankful and very happy to live in Pakistan. We always welcome foreign investment as the situation here is very convenient for going concern.
it is no doubt challenge to do business in Pakistan due regulatory and financial regulation changing every time in 75 years .
This is worth sharing content, thank you author.
From the very day You started facing challenges the day You burned the Holly Quran in Denmark and in Sweden. Customers stopped using Telenor. So, the reason is you yourself. You must not be racist and bias
If you can survive 20 yearsyou can survive another two decades…
Could someone post here:
1) The initial amount of investment Telenor started with in Pakistan, and what amount was added subsequently over the years?
When and what amount was their last investment?
2) What is the total amount of profits repatriated over the years, and since when and what amount was stuck in Pakistan?
3) What is the amount of income tax paid by Telenor to the government of Pakistan over the years?
4) The number of new jobs created by Telenor in the last five years?
If Telenor could survive 20 years in Pakistan, they could have stayed another two decades in a country where they had the smoothest ride of all in the region….
lies telenor earned lots of money in beginning
was pakistan good at that time
I observed poor services of Telenor than jazz zone u fore thier rates were much hiegher than jazz or u phone
Yes it is very difficult to do anything
Actually they dont know how to do business, they should find opportunity in Pakistan rather than leave Pakistan.
Good Riddance: I have been following telenor service since the launch of 3G in April 2014 in Pakistan. I switched to Telenor in 2016 because they offered cheaper 3G internet packages with more data. Overall, their service has been affordable with competitive internet packages. However, the biggest issue I have faced is their customer service, which has been extremely poor compared to their competitors. I have experienced multiple instances of credit deductions from my account in various ways. One common issue is that after using around 80% of a data package, even when there is still data left, they start charging me at standard rates and wipe out my account balance. In an attempt to mitigate this, I would sometimes subscribe to a new bundle to refresh the data count and check if the previous package had actually reached zero, but unfortunately, that was not the case. Over the past decade, I have lodged more than 100 complaints to their customer service through calls and the telenor app, but they always provide empty promises of fixing the issue and give lame excuses. They seem to intentionally keep these flaws in their system to extract more money from users and have never truly tried to address and resolve the problem.
On the other hand, I have also been using Warid service since 2009, and it has been the best and most honest in my experience. I used to subscribe to 2G data bundles, such as 250MB for a week and 100MB for a day. Only twice did I face balance deductions by warid, and I called them in 2015 to suggest that they send users a message when their data bundle is half used and also before it reaches zero. To my surprise, they promptly addressed the issues beyond my expectations, and the problems were resolved within just two days. Moreover, Warid has never had any irregular jumps in deductions.
I gave the same advice to Telenor customer service, and they eventually implemented this service. However, even when there is still 20% data left in the bundle, they slowly start deducting money from the user’s account until it is completely depleted, worst experience and now their internet slow as 🐌💨 💩!
Main reason is desecration of Holy Quran.
People said goodbye to them.
hope the CEO understands.
Would be nice for the reporter to provide some statistics and data, and some other perspectives from other foreign investors.
Im wonder if he is right then how can Zong be so successful in this market after coming at end?
he was not number 1, 2 or three in this market. they come after the telenor.
such a peace of shit after looting they took alot of money. liers!
Im wonder if he is right then how can Zong be so successful in this market after coming at end?
he was not number 1, 2 or three in this market. they come after the telenor.
such a peace of shit after looting they took alot of money.
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Interesting what about Ant financials stake in easypaisa. Wasn’t the Chinese taking over telenor
I am Telenor Franchisee Business Partner but now Telenor pakistan doing fraud with their investor and hold their Advance security Deposit not pay to investors in the name of fake Refund Audit of 3 years. I want to Hight this issue in media
the reason they left pakistani market is because of their inferior quality service. their internet speed is bullshit so their customer care. when the light goes and when the sun set or when their is cloudy season no one will see their signals… take away your easypaisa with yourself too we Don’t need it either… when zong mobilink are doing well why can’t you?