News Update Times

Fertilizer industry passing on PKR 900 billion benefit to farmers

The local fertilizer Industry is providing urea at around 84% discount, equivalent to PKR 9,823 per bag, and is expected to enable import substitution of USD 5.3 billion in 2022.

Discussing the latest business results and future outlook in first quarter analyst briefing, Imran Ahmed – Chief Financial Officer of Engro Fertilizers shared that the fertilizer sector is passing on a benefit of PKR 900 billion per annum to farmers through the provision of urea at significant discount to current global prices. Over the last 10 years, the industry is passed on benefit of over PKR 1.4 trillion to the farmers through lower urea prices. This amount is four times higher the benefit that industry has received through gas pricing under the Fertilizer Policy 2001.

At the same time, the industry has been playing a significant role towards reducing the country’s trade and fiscal deficit as the country is self-sufficient in urea production. 

In the last annual general meeting of the Company, shareholders expressed concerns over the sharp disparity between international and local urea prices. Shareholders further added that the company has been losing shareholders’ value by pricing urea at a significant discount to import parity. Imran Ahmed emphasized that urea demand has increased by 17% in Q1 2022 compared to the same period last year. The Company’s research indicates that, as per crop mix and cultivated area for the first quarter, there has been an estimated increase of 2% in agronomic demand. He added that this situation may in part be due to advance buying by the farmers, but also indicates a strong probability of product movement across border emanating from significant disparity among local and international urea prices.

Imran also highlighted the challenges faced by fertilizer industry, including recoveries of outstanding subsidy and sales tax receivables from the Government, disallowances made under Income & Sales Tax for sales to unregistered dealers, and FBR clarification on Concessionary custom duty withdrawing the concession / relief given earlier.

He also stated that continued Government support will be required to resolve these pressing matters, which will allow Engro Fertilizers to continue to play its role in transforming the agricultural landscape of Pakistan and to ensure long-term food security of Pakistan.

Karachi (Muhammad Yasir) FrieslandCampina Engro Pakistan Limited (FCEPL) announced its financial results for Q1 on April 20, 2022. The Company reported revenue of PKR 14 billion in the first quarter, showcasing 20.7% growth versus last year. The growth was led by improvement in the portfolio mix, coupled with an increase in volumes of both, the Dairy & Beverages and the Frozen Desserts segments.

Riddled with sharp increases in commodity costs due to continued inflation and the devaluation of the Pakistani Rupee, the business environment remained fraught with challenges. Consequently, the Gross Margins declined by 140bps.

However, the Company continued to drive cost-efficiencies through multiple cost-saving initiatives, which resulted in FCEPL registering a post-tax profit of PKR 664 million in Q1 vs PKR 547 million in the same period last year – an improvement of 10bps.

Committed to improving standards and nourishing Pakistan, FCEPL established the Pakistan-Netherlands Dairy Development Centre, in collaboration with the University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences (UVAS). By leveraging Netherland’s rich dairy expertise, the Centre aims to improve Pakistan’s dairy development capacity and quality by increasing production, improving food security, enhancing food-safety, and integrating sustainability in Pakistan’s dairy value chains and food landscape.

Dairy and beverages

The Dairy and Beverages segment reported a revenue of PKR 12.8 billion, registering a 19.5% growth year-over-year. The segment’s growth was led by Olper’s as it continued to strengthen its position as the market leader with ongoing brand and trade investments. The segment witnessed significant expansion in the retail footprint and E-Commerce channel during the quarter and will continue to explore new channels and route to markets to serve its customers effectively and efficiently.

To simultaneously diversify and strengthen its portfolio, and solidify its association with mornings, the Company launched Olper’s Cheese, which offers the nutritional equivalent of one glass of Olper’s milk (200g) in every slice of Olper’s cheese (20g). Additional recent launches including Olper’s flavored milk, Olper’s full cream milk powder (FCMP), Olper’s pro-cal, Olper’s cream and Tarang Elaichi, continued to accumulate market share.

Frozen desserts

With revenue of PKR 1.2 billion, the frozen desserts segment reported a growth of 34.1% vs the same period last year. Offering a value-added product at an affordable price, the Company launched the O’more Double Choco Chips Cone in 2022 at a price point of PKR 50, which was well-received in the market and is expected to grow.

Future outlook

The business environment remains fragile as rising inflation and currency devaluation continue to pressure profitability. However, several optimisation initiatives are being taken to improve efficiencies and manage inflation.

At FCEPL, our purpose is to transform the health and well-being of Pakistanis, now and for generations to come. We will continue to partner with the Pakistan Dairy Association (PDA) and the Government on various initiatives to educate the consumers on the potential health hazards of loose milk consumption and reinforce the positive characteristics of safe packaged milk.

Our business will continue to invest in our people, processes, and projects to deliver unparalleled value and superlative quality, driven by innovation and technology. This will strengthen our brand equity and enable us to be the preferred choice for consumers’ dairy needs and expand our profit accretive portfolio to leverage margins.

The Company remains committed to the highest standards of hygiene, food safety and sustainability and providing safe, affordable, and nourishing dairy products to millions of Pakistanis, every day.

The Company’s Annual General Meeting was held on April 20, 2022 at the Royal Rodale in Karachi. Shareholders and the Board of Directors discussed the Company’s performance in 2021 and the MD/CEO gave a short presentation on the Company’s performance.

TECNO keeps the tradition alive – almost 2.5 Lac people have activated their new TECNO phones in Q1 2022 using Zong sims. The users got a chance to enjoy FREE 12GB of internet from the company to enjoy the new device to its fullest.

The collaboration has been going on for some time now and all Zong users who activate a new TECNO device using their sims get to enjoy 12GB of free internet for up to three months. Be it a Spark phone or Camon or the Gaming POVA phones, you can enjoy this on all new devices of TECNO. Moreover, this service can be activated on the recently launched Spark 8C as well.  

As per the statistics shared by Zong 4G, almost 250,000 new users of TECNO have activated their devices using Zong sims. This is a huge number and shows the popularity TECNO Mobile has gathered over such a short while. 

Kelvin Zeng, CEO of TECNO Mobile Pakistan shared his views on this achievement,

“This is a huge number when seeing that only Zong Users buying TECNO made it to 250,000 people. Our sales have been good this year and this collaboration with Zong 4G is just a gesture to give back to our customers so that they can enjoy their new devices to the fullest.”

For anyone who wants to utilize this offer, the methods are simple. Get a new TECNO device, activate it using your Zong number, and enjoy FREE internet for three months. The offer is available on already launched devices as well.

 

MMBL partners with BaKhabar Kissan to foster a smart digital ecosystem for its growing Agri-customers across Pakistan

Lahore (Muhammad Yasir) Pakistan’s largest digital bank, Mobilink Microfinance Bank Ltd (MMBL) has partnered with BaKhabar Kissan (BKK), a leading agri-tech enterprise that provides advisory services to small and medium farmers across the country.

Through this strategic alliance, smart digital financial and agri-tech solutions will be offered to MMBL’s growing base of agri-customers to help farmers identify, assess and monitor crop type, weather and land conditions, livestock, and other key agriculture and environment-related indicators to boost income and agricultural produce.

President & CEO MMBL, Ghazanfar Azzam, and CEO BKK, Khizer Alam Khan signed the agreement in Islamabad, with senior officials from both organizations in presence.

Under this partnership, MMBL will empower its Agri-borrowers using smart digital financial solutions to boost their agricultural output. This alliance will not only improve digital financial literacy rates among farmers but also, provide them access to round-the-clock advisory from Agri-experts on crop management with a focus on increasing yield and income.

Speaking about the partnership, Chief Finance & Digital Officer MMBL, Sardar Mohammad Abubakr said: “The use of optimized digital financial services in the agricultural sector of Pakistan is the need of the hour that has the potential of providing farmers with better access to agri-commerce, crop & livestock advisory, weather conditions, and disaster management. Through this partnership, MMBL is dedicated to strengthening the agri-tech landscape in Pakistan by digitally enabling our increasing agricultural farmers, comprising 63% of MMBL’s total customer base.”

Also speaking at the occasion, Fuad Imran Khan, Chief Strategy Officer BKK said: “BaKhabar Kissan is delighted to sign this agreement with MMBL. Farmers are at the front and center in all that we do at BaKhabar Kissan. This agreement will go a long way towards promoting financial inclusion in agriculture which in many ways is the most important, yet one of the most neglected sectors of our economy. Timely provision of credit to farmers, particularly smallholder farmers is an important ingredient in ensuring good farm productivity and quality. With MMBL, we will move the needle in agriculture productivity and contribute towards a more prosperous Pakistan.”

The initiative will be offered to MMBL’s agricultural borrowers through its expansive network across Pakistan to adopt better and improved agriculture methods and solutions to boost productivity and efficiency. MMBL through, Khushhal Kissaan Loan, Passbook Loan, Tractor Loan, Khushhal Kissaan Value Chain, and Livestock Loan is actively working towards improving farmers’ access to finance. With its partnership with BKK, the Bank is committed to bringing its borrowers agri-tech advisory services that will ensure improved profitability by decreasing both yield loss and input cost.

AI-powered Ericsson Performance Optimizers – top network performance and automation, rolled into one.

• The new solution leverages automation, scalability, speed, accuracy, and consistency in network optimization to enable a superior subscriber experience, while reducing operating costs.
• Ericsson and Ooredoo Qatar trialed the software solution at a major football tournament and noted improved uplink capacity along with gains on speed and traffic volume.
• A part of Ericsson’s Cognitive Software portfolio, the solution uses digital twin technology and advanced AI techniques like deep reinforcement learning.

Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC) Performance Optimizers is a suite of AI-powered applications, that analyze the CSPs’ Radio Access Network (RAN) to proactively provide mobile network optimization recommendations and resolve specific network performance issues.

Ericsson Performance Optimizers can be deployed to enable a helicopter view of the network as a whole. The solution accounts for the invisible changes in the network caused by each addition to the environment, such as new applications, city growth, new sites or user behavior. It is equipped with digital twin technology and advanced AI techniques like deep reinforcement learning.

Digital twin technology accurately mimics the network behavior upon parameter changes, ensuring an approach that minimizes risk and elevates the optimizer’s quality to telco grade from day one. Reinforcement learning is a machine-learning (ML) technique that learns from the network, where an agent (Performance Optimizer) interacts with the environment and takes actions towards a long-term goal.

Additionally, the solution can also be used to accurately predict network performance improvements and proactively provide one-shot optimization recommendations for targeted cells.

Ericsson plans to periodically add new features to the existing solution to address the challenges brought on by different network issues, thereby increasing the coverage of automated optimization.

With 5G, CSPs are looking to transform essential parts of their operations to achieve optimal performance and return on investment. Vendor agnostic AI-native solutions such as Ericsson Performance Optimizers are key to automate and cope with growing complexity while keeping control of cost. 

In November 2021, Ericsson trialed the solution with Ooredoo Qatar for a major football  tournament. As part of the partnership Ericsson provided network optimization and event management and 5G connectivity in three stadiums, airports and places of attraction. Massive efficiency gains were noted – where traditional worst cell analysis takes days to complete, the new automated approach with performance optimizers took only 15 minutes, producing hundreds of recommendations.

Juan Manuel Melero, Head of Network Design & Optimization, Ericsson, says: During the trial with Ooredoo Qatar, we noted that 89% of internal uplink interference cases were automatically resolved by the Performance Optimizers. This resulted in 7% improvement in uplink capacity, along with significant gains in speed and traffic volume. We now look forward to leveraging our expertise and experience to support our customers around the world to achieve top network performance and deliver the best user experience.

Günther Ottendorfer, Chief Technology and Infrastructure Officer at Ooredoo Qatar, says: For Ooredoo, customer experience and automation are top priority. We see AI-powered operations as key to deliver on our promise of world-class services to our subscribers. During the major football event held in Qatar in December 2021, Ericsson’s Cognitive Software provided a near real-time automation of optimization actions. The end-result was a superior user experience. before, during and after the matches.

Ericsson Performance Optimizers suite is part of the Cognitive Software pack in Ericsson Operations Engine. It can be implemented through licensing, software as a service (SaaS) or as part of our services packs.