Warid Telecom likely iPhone distributor in Pakistan

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Ok, this isnt something heard from industry insiders, but based on some basic analysis.

SingTel just secured iPhone distribution deals in Singapore, India, Australia and Phillipines. The latter three are via partly-owned subsidiaries.

SingTel also owns 30% of Warid Telecom now. It makes pretty reasonable sense for SingTel to push iPhone distribution in Pakistan and even Bangladesh via Warid as well, since for a hardware product like the iPhone and aggressive vendors like Apple, the margins for SingTel would depend so much on scale.

That doesn’t close the market for others – e.g. Vodacom is also using its massive global footprint to plan distribution in India alongside SingTel.

That theoretically leaves Orascom Telecom, Telenor, and China Mobile still in the game… but again it wouldnt make sense for any of these to make iphone distribution deals just for the Pakistani market (sorry.. not scale enough for the Apple beast). So they are likely to only enter if their global footprint is interested.

Orascom Telecom? Hmm.. probably not so much right away. Telenor? Already lost some key markets to Vodacom. China Mobile? Hmm… controversial economics may make Apple think twice about jumping in right away.

So that comes back to Warid being the most likely company to start iPhone distribution in Pakistan, or atleast do it with the highest margins anyway.