Official data from the PTA for the manufacturing and assembly of mobile hand sets revealed that the local manufacturing plants assembled 13.08 million mobile handsets during the first five months (January-May) of the calendar year 2024 compared to 0.76 million imported commercially.
The locally manufactured/assembled 13.08 million mobile phone handsets included 4.98 million 2G and 8.1 million smartphones according to which, 61 percent of mobile devices are smartphones, and 39 percent are 2G on the Pakistan network.
A decline of four percent was shown in the local manufacturing of handsets during the year 2023, the cause of which was said to be issues in imports on account of restricting the opening of Letters of Credit (LCs) for mobile phones accessories. However, according to the official data, commercial imports of mobile handsets increased during this period despite the restrictions.
The country imported mobile phones worth $1.621 billion during the first 11 months (July-May) of the current fiscal year 2023-24, registering growth of 213.97 percent when compared to $516.488 million during the same period of last fiscal year.
According to the data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS), Pakistan’s mobile phone imports decreased by 1.58 percent on a Month-on-Month (MoM) basis in May 2024 and stood at $158.842 million compared to imports of $161.384 million in April 2024.
On a Year on Year (YoY) basis, mobile phone imports registered 267.68 percent growth in May 2024 as compared to 43.2 million dollars in May 2023.
The overall telecom imports into the country stood at $2.047 billion during July-May 2023-24 and registered 138.04 percent growth compared to $860.281 million during the same period of the last fiscal year.
On a YoY basis, a growth of 163.19 percent was registered in the overall telecom imports which stood at $212.980 million in May 2024 compared to $80.922 million in May 2023.
