Buy a Pakistan eSIM Online

Mobile internet in Pakistan: from four operators to three

Pakistan had four nationwide mobile operators through 2025 — Jazz, Zong, Telenor and Ufone. On 1 July 2026, Telenor Pakistan and Ufone completed their merger into a single entity, PTML, after the Islamabad High Court approved it and PTCL was split out as a separate entity under an arrangement mandated by the Competition Commission of Pakistan. The market now counts three players: Jazz, Zong and merged Ufone (PTML). As of end-May 2026 — before the merger had fully closed — Jazz held a 36.4% market share per PTA figures, against 35.9% for the combined Ufone-Telenor: a market with two nearly equally sized players alongside Zong in third.

The sector as a whole is large: PTA's own Annual Report 2024-25 counts over 200 million telecom subscribers in Pakistan, with over 150 million broadband connections and broadband penetration above 60%. Sector revenue exceeded PKR 1 trillion, up 12% year on year, and data usage reached 27,727 petabytes in 2025, with international bandwidth at 17.21 Tbps.

The regulator's own quality measurements also offer an older, but useful, regional picture: in Q2 2025 PTA ran coverage drive tests across 19 cities in Punjab, Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces. Ufone and Jazz came out on top — Ufone met the standard in 33 of 34 tested cities, Jazz in 18 of 19 cities tested on 4G — Zong followed with 31 of 34, and Telenor was the clear laggard, with 13 non-compliant cities. That survey predates the Telenor-Ufone merger (completed 1 July 2026) and covers only three provinces, so we draw no nationwide conclusion from it; the network then run by Telenor is now part of merged Ufone (PTML).

5G in Pakistan: only just launched

5G in Pakistan is very new. Jazz, Zong and Ufone were all three granted 5G licences by PTA on 20 March 2026. Zong was among the first to go commercially live, in over 16 cities including Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar and Quetta, committing to over 1,000 5G sites across the country in 2026. Jazz followed with a first phase of around 180 sites across all provincial capitals and key metro hubs, including Multan and Faisalabad. Ufone held its licence but had not announced a commercial 5G launch as of that date.

Independent Opensignal measurements over a 90-day window in Q2 2026 recorded an average 5G download speed of 127.74 Mbps and 12.7 Mbps upload — but 5G signal was available for only 3.95% of users' connected time. 4G averaged 18.9 Mbps download in the same measurement. Regulator PTA itself added that Pakistan's 5G rollout remains at an early stage, with limited coverage and a small user base — an honest snapshot rather than a finished network.

Roaming in Pakistan without an eSIM

Pakistan is outside the EU and the EEA, so 'Roam Like at Home' does not apply. That arrangement covers the EU member states plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway, and, since 1 January 2026, Moldova and Ukraine; Pakistan is not among them. Your Belgian or Dutch bundle therefore stays behind: your operator bills every megabyte at its own out-of-bundle roaming tariff, without the EU price caps that apply inside the zone. The European Commission advises checking that tariff with your provider before you go.