The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics shared data for the manufacturing and assembly
of products in the market of mobile phones and handsets. According to the data,
13.02 million mobile handsets have been assembled locally within the first nine
months of 2023 as compared to 1.09 million commercial imports. 2.15 million
mobile handsets have been assembled by the local manufacturers during
September 2023 compared to 0.25 million imported commercially. Whereas
during the calendar year 2022, 21.94 million mobile handsets were locally
manufactured as compared to 24.66 million in 2021.
According to the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) approximately
21.94 million mobile phones were assembled locally in 2022 and 1.53 million
were imported commercially.
The 13.02 million handsets that were locally made in the first 9 months of 2023
included 9.01 million 2G and 4.02 million smart phones. As PTA states, 57 percent
of the mobile phones working on Pakistani network are smart phones and the
9ther 43 percent are 2G.
According to PBS data, the imports of Rs37.1 billion in September 2023 were 13.3
percent higher than imports of Rs32.7 billion registered in the previous month i.e.
August 2023. During the first three months of the current fiscal year the i.e. July-
September FY24 the imports came in at Rs 88.95 billion, up 147 percent
compared to imports of Rs 35.9 billion registered in the same period of the
previous fiscal year (FY23). In dollar terms, the imports in September were
recorded to be $ 124.51 million, which is 12 percent compared to imports of $
111.34 million in August 2023 and up 113 percent compared to imports of $
58.407 million in September 2022.
