The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority revealed that local manufacturing plants produced and assembled 18.14 million phone handsets from January to October 2022, as compared to 1.29 million commercially imported phone handsets (PTA).
Local manufacturing plants produced 24.66 million mobile phone handsets in 2021, an 88 percent increase from 13.05 million in 2020. It was also reported that commercial imports of mobile phone handsets were 10.26 million in 2021, an increase from 24.51 million in 2020, PTA data revealed.
10.51 million 2G handsets and 7.63 million smartphones were among the 18.14 million handsets produced locally.
Furthermore, according to PTA data, 55 percent of mobile devices in Pakistan are smartphones, while 45 percent are 2G. Despite the rise in domestic production, Pakistan imported mobile phones worth $226.051 million in the first four months (July-October) of the current fiscal year 2022-23, a 64.94 percent decline from the same period last year.
According to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS),?imports of?mobile phones increased 12.62 percent monthly (MoM) to $65.780 million in October 2022, up from $58.407 million in September 2022.
however, mobile phone imports fell by 56.06 percent year on year (YoY) in October 2022, compared to $149.712 million in the same month the previous year.
The effective execution of the Device Identification, Registration, and Blocking System (DIRBS), along with supportive government policies like the mobile manufacturing policy, have formed a favorable environment in Pakistan for mobile device manufacturing.
It is to be mentioned that Pakistan, a net importer of mobile phones before 2016, produced 22.12 million handsets and imported 9.95 million during the same period, according to data revealed by PTA. Pakistan imported 24.51 million mobile phones in 2020, compared to 13.05 million locally produced sets.
According to the PTA, various Chinese mobile phone manufacturers will play a key role in Pakistan’s production boom in 2021.