According to Pakistan Telecommunication Authority, local manufacturing facilities produced or assembled 21.94 million phones in 2022, down 11% from 24.66 million in 2021. (PTA).
The drop was ascribed to difficulties with imports because of letters of credit that were restricted (LCs). Comparatively, Pakistan imported 1.53 million mobile phones for business use during that time.
2.24 million handsets were produced or assembled locally in just December 2022. In comparison to 13.05 million in 2020, local plants produced/assembled 24.66 million cellphones in the calendar year 2021, an unprecedented rise of 88%.
10.26 million mobile phone handsets were imported for commercial use in 2021 compared to 24.51 million in 2020.
13.15 million 2G phones and 8.79 million smartphones were among the 21.94 million mobile phones that were produced or built locally.
Additionally, according to PTA data, 44% of mobile devices on the Pakistani network are 2G and 56% of them are smartphones.
Pakistan imported mobile phones worth $362.862 million for the first half of the current fiscal year 2022–23, a decrease of 66.73% from $1.090 billion during the same period last year, despite the country’s increased local mobile phone production.
According to data from the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS), mobile phone imports increased 12.04% month over month (MoM), from $64.520 million in November 2022 to $72.291 million in December 2022.
In December 2022, mobile phone imports decreased by 69.10% on a year-over-year (YoY) basis from $233.917 million in the corresponding month of the previous year.
During the first half of the current fiscal year 2022–23, the total amount of telecom imports into the nation was $565.896 million, a decrease of 60.24% from the $1.423 billion imported during the same time of the previous fiscal year.
However, as compared to December 2021, the total amount of telecom imports showed a negative YoY growth of 62.43%, coming in at $110.165 million as opposed to $293.193 million.
When compared to the $110.136 million in November 2022, overall telecom imports showed a MoM growth of 0.03% in December 2022.
Other apparatus imports decreased by 38.97% from $323.656 million in the same period of the previous fiscal year to $203.035 million in July–December 2022.
Other apparatus experienced a $36.11% negative growth year-over-year when compared to $59.276 million in December 2021 and a 16.97% negative growth month-over-month when compared to $45.616 million in November 2022. On an annual basis, other apparatus remained at $37.874 million in December 2022.
