Pakistan Has 211.17 Million Mobile Subscribers, PTA's August 2026 Figures Show

Short answer: PTA's own table shows 211,172,682 mobile cellular subscribers in Pakistan at the end of August 2026, up 716,487 in one month. Jazz has 76.30 million. Ufone and Telenor together have 76.09 million, about 209,000 fewer than Jazz.

A subscriber in this table is a SIM connection, not a person. A man with two SIMs counts twice. Keep that in mind before you compare these numbers with the population.

We opened the PTA Telecom Indicators page on 12 October 2026 and read the monthly series from September 2025 to August 2026. The page says its figures are updated as of August 2026. It does not give the day PTA posted them, so we cannot say how new the release is. Every operator figure below comes from that page. The shares and the differences are our own sums.

Jazz leads, but only by about 209,000 against Ufone and Telenor combined

Jazz has 76,303,155 subscribers. Ufone has 31,789,597 and Telenor has 44,304,611, which makes 76,094,208 together. That is 36.03 per cent of the total against Jazz at 36.13 per cent. A year of growth has nearly closed the gap.

Ufone and Telenor are described as one merged business in our report on the Ufone name question, but PTA's table still lists them as two operators. We kept them apart and added them ourselves.

Ufone added 4.7 million subscribers in 11 months, the fastest rise

Between September 2025 and August 2026 Ufone grew from 27,084,240 to 31,789,597. That is 4,705,357 more, a rise of 17.4 per cent. Zong grew 9.2 per cent, Jazz 5.1 per cent and Telenor 3.8 per cent.

The whole market rose by 14,978,037, or 7.6 per cent. The biggest single month was December 2025, when the total jumped by 3,970,572. PTA's page gives no reason for that jump, so we do not guess.

Zong added the most subscribers in raw numbers, 4,751,337. Ufone grew fastest because it started from a smaller base.

Telenor and SCO lost subscribers in August

Telenor lost 20,429 subscribers and SCO lost 73,175 between July and August 2026. The other three operators gained. The Telenor fall is small, about 0.05 per cent of its base, and it is one month only.

One month does not make a trend. Telenor's count was 43,868,222 in April and 44,325,040 in July, so it has moved up and down inside a narrow band since the start of the year. We would wait for the September figure before reading anything into August.

The draft competition rules count revenue, not subscribers

Jazz at 36.1 per cent of subscribers is above 25 per cent, but that does not make it dominant under the draft rules. The draft Telecommunication Competition Rules, 2026 look at an operator's share of a market's revenue, not its SIM count.

That draft is not law and nothing in it changes your bill today. Our note on what PTA wants changed in the draft competition rules explains the 25 per cent test and says we could not read the draft text. We have not seen revenue shares for August, so we cannot say which operator would pass the test.

What these figures mean for your own SIM

A bigger operator does not mean a better signal where you live. Subscriber counts say how many SIMs are active on a network. They say nothing about call drops or speed in your street. Use quality tests for that, and a SIM check for your own safety.

1. Look up the network that did best in your city in PTA's 2026 test of 11 cities before you buy a new SIM.
2. If your network is weak at home, port your number to another network and keep it.
3. Count the SIMs registered on your CNIC, because every unknown SIM is one of the 211 million connections above. Check SIMs on your CNIC takes two minutes.
4. Block any SIM you did not buy.

How to read the figures on PTA's page yourself

Open the Telecom Indicators page on PTA's website, choose Subscribers, and pick the Cellular tab. The page shows a monthly chart for the last 12 months and a yearly chart. Hover over any bar for the exact count.

1. Open pta.gov.pk and go to Telecom Indicators.
2. Choose Subscribers, then Cellular.
3. Pick Monthly for the last 12 months or Annual for fiscal years.
4. Read the Total line for the market and each operator line for its share.

Common questions

How many mobile subscribers does Pakistan have in 2026?

PTA's table shows 211,172,682 at the end of August 2026. That is up from 196,194,645 in September 2025. Each number counts a SIM connection, not a unique person.

Which mobile network has the most subscribers in Pakistan?

Jazz, with 76,303,155 in August 2026. Zong is second with 56,651,585. Ufone and Telenor together have 76,094,208, which is about 209,000 fewer than Jazz.

Is Ufone growing faster than Jazz?

Yes. In the 11 months to August 2026 Ufone grew 17.4 per cent and Jazz grew 5.1 per cent. Jazz still has more than twice as many subscribers as Ufone alone.

Does a bigger subscriber count mean better service?

No. The count measures SIMs, not call quality or speed. PTA publishes separate quality surveys for call drops and data speed by city.

Are the Ufone and Telenor numbers one company in PTA's table?

No. PTA lists Ufone and Telenor as two operators in this table. We added them ourselves to show the combined figure.

When did PTA publish the August 2026 figures?

The page does not show a posting date. It says the figures are updated as of August 2026, and we read it on 12 October 2026.

How we verified this

What we checked, where we read it, and what we could not confirm.

We read the monthly series on PTA's Telecom Indicators: Subscribers page on 12 October 2026, from the chart data for September 2025 to August 2026. We did not verify the figures against any operator's own report. The shares, monthly differences and combined Ufone and Telenor total are our arithmetic on PTA's numbers, and rounding may shift the last digit.