The Telecom Operators’ Association, in collaboration with GSMA, hosted the launch of the GSMA Mobile Gender Gap Report 2026 in Islamabad, revealing that Pakistan recorded the largest improvement among all countries surveyed in narrowing the mobile ownership gender gap, with the gap declining from 37 percent in 2024 to 27 percent in 2025. Pakistan also ranked among the top-performing countries across the 14 low- and middle-income countries surveyed, recording improvements across nearly all indicators of women’s digital access and usage, with a particularly sharp reduction in the mobile internet gender gap, from 25 percent to 8 percent in just one year, one of the fastest improvements recorded globally. Women’s mobile internet usage increased significantly, while male usage remained relatively stable, indicating strong momentum in women’s digital adoption.
Telecom Operators’ Association Chairman Aamir Ibrahim welcomed the findings, describing them as evidence that sustained collaboration across government, regulators, mobile operators, development partners, and civil society could help accelerate progress in closing longstanding gender gaps in digital access. Despite the historic progress, significant barriers remain. The report noted that approximately 47 million women in Pakistan still did not use mobile internet, and that 28 percent of female mobile internet users relied exclusively on someone else’s phone to access the internet, compared to just 4 percent of men. Ibrahim said that whether through installment plans or lower device costs, ways need to be found to increase smartphone ownership among women.
The event brought together GSMA experts including Dominica Lindsey, Senior Director of Connected Women at Mobile for Development; Emma Catalfamo, Senior Insights Manager at Connected Women; Laura Martineau Searle, Director of Policy and Advocacy for Digital Inclusion; and Saira Faisal Syed, Country Lead on Digital Transformation, who engaged stakeholders in discussions on addressing barriers to women’s digital participation. Participants identified affordability, digital literacy and skills, and social norms and family disapproval as the key barriers to women’s internet adoption, emphasising the need for a multi-dimensional response including affordable devices, improved digital literacy, safe and inclusive online environments, and efforts to address structural barriers.
Pakistan’s progress builds on a trajectory that has been tracked closely by GSMA over recent years. In 2024, 8 million women came online in Pakistan, reducing the gender gap in mobile internet adoption from 38 percent in 2023 to 25 percent in 2024. A major share of that earlier progress resulted from increased rural adoption, driven by greater availability of entry-level smartphones and strategic outreach programmes, with the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority’s Digital Gender Inclusion Strategy creating a structured direction for operators and public institutions to follow. The continuation of that momentum into the 2026 report, with the internet gender gap falling further to just 8 percent, suggests that the combination of policy direction from PTA, coordinated investment from mobile operators, and sustained technical support from GSMA’s Connected Women programme has produced one of the more successful digital inclusion trajectories among low- and middle-income countries globally, even as the remaining 47 million unconnected women represent a substantial population that will require continued, targeted intervention to bring online.
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