Taimur Nawaz

Early life and background

Nawaz's father served in the army for 33 years. Nawaz grew up moving around Pakistan and covered the cantonments along the GT Road. He attended nine schools before 10th grade, mainly missionary schools, starting at a convent school in Jhelum. He also attended a school in Rawalpindi. He has one sibling, a sister about one year apart in age. [1]

Education

Nawaz chose engineering because he enjoyed maths, and he did his engineering at NUST. He once considered sitting the CSS exam with a view to a foreign service career. He decided he was not cut out for the CSS exam. [1]

He chose an MBA to stay in telecoms and work on strategy and the commercial side. He did the MBA at LUMS and graduated in the class of 2003. [1]

Career

Nawaz worked in project management at Alcatel in Islamabad. He worked at Alcatel for almost two years. He wanted to move into the commercial side of telecoms. He spent a brief six months at Ufone before joining the founding team at Telenor. [1]

Telenor

Nawaz describes himself as employee number five at the founding team he joined. He stayed for almost eight and a half years. He was head of value-added services, which later became digital services. He says the team reinvented the wheel in a greenfield operation. [1]

China Mobile and Qualcomm

Nawaz left Telenor and joined China Mobile, then left in August 2014 and went abroad. At Qualcomm his role was business development and market development. He was based in the Middle East rather than San Diego, because the company had no presence in Pakistan. He did not move abroad because he was asked to look after Pakistan as one of the markets. [1]

He worked closely with ODMs in China. He worked with the PTA, distributors and telcos on market initiatives. He worked closely with Oppo and Xiaomi to bring them to Pakistan. He decided to return to Pakistan because his family was there and he had been travelling heavily. [1]

Transworld Associates

Before Transworld, Nawaz had only worked in wireless telecoms, never in fixed broadband. He joined Transworld as general manager of strategy, reporting to the president. He looked after sales and also had marketing and new business development functions. He is the Director of New Business Development and Head of Marketing at Transworld Associates. [1]

Other roles

Nawaz is a Charter Member at TiE Islamabad. He is the Founder and Partner of CalmKaaj. [1]

Views

Nawaz says Pakistan has one of the cheapest data markets in the world. He says Pakistan's ARPU was about 4 to 5 dollars back then, far below Middle East levels. He says ARPU drives telcos' capital spending decisions. He says ARPU is now less than a dollar, about 87 cents. He says years of telco price wars pushed ARPU down. [1]

He says four telcos are too many for Pakistan's market. He says about 80 to 86 percent of users are prepaid. He says the business in Pakistan focuses mainly on the top 10 percent. He describes Circle as an MVNO, a Singapore-based service. [1]

He says the regulator has an important role. He says 2G was never switched off in Pakistan, though the regulator debated it around 2016 to 2017. He says many legacy 2G devices are still on the market. He says device compatibility for 5G in Pakistan is very low. [1]

He says building fibre is time intensive and labour intensive and needs heavy investment. He says coverage is not an issue in wireless, because one tower can give very good coverage. He says Pakistan's fibre penetration is about 1 percent. He says house passes, the occupied homes a network can reach, drive penetration decisions. He says tier 3 cities and towns are not yet a viable market because the money needed is high. [1]

He says a bundle of internet, TV and voice costs about 3,000 to 4,000 rupees. He says sectors such as F10, F7 and F8 are price sensitive markets when it comes to internet. He says the F-sector and DHA markets do not represent Pakistan. [1]

He says the homes he visits mostly have a connection of 20 Mbps at most. He compares a 20 Mbps connection at 3,000 to 4,000 rupees with Jazz offering 40 Mbps for 800 rupees. He says speeds in Pakistan have not improved in ten years. [1]

He says Sialkot, Faisalabad, Gujranwala and Peshawar have fibre pockets. He says a common corridor project has been under way in Karachi for the past two to three years. [1]

Timeline

2014

Left China Mobile in August and went abroad.[1]

Appearances

Frequently asked questions

References

1. Why cheap data and a small mindset keep Pakistan offline . Thought Behind Things , 2023-08-09.