ISLAMABAD — Pakistan has about 100 million TikTok users and 96 million YouTube users, Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) Chairman Major General (retd) Hafeez ur Rehman told the National Assembly Standing Committee on Information Technology and Telecommunications on Tuesday.
Rehman said users in Pakistan watched about 560 million YouTube videos a day, placing the country first globally for video viewership on the platform. He put daily TikTok activity at nearly 150 million videos watched or uploaded from Pakistan.
At the meeting, chaired by MNA Syed Aminul Haque, lawmakers questioned the push to expand 5G while consumers continue to face dropped calls and poor mobile internet. Committee member Ahmad Atiq said some rural areas still struggled to access 3G and asked how much fibre-optic infrastructure had been installed over the past two and a half years. Asia Ishaq also raised concerns about deteriorating 4G service.
IT Minister Shaza Fatima Khawaja said 5G was being rolled out in 24 cities and cited the theft of telecom equipment, including generators and, in some areas, entire mobile towers, as one cause of service disruptions. The PTA chairman said he had visited 41 districts with telecom operators to assess network quality and had directed the companies to improve their services.