During the initial two months of 2024, local manufacturing plants in Pakistan assembled a staggering 6.1 million mobile handsets, overshadowing the 0.3 million commercially imported devices, according to official data.
In February alone, local plants produced 3.83 million handsets, compared to just 0.06 million imported commercially. Of the locally produced devices, 2.78 million were 2G phones, with 3.35 million being smartphones, as per Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) statistics, reflecting a 60-40 split between smartphones and 2G devices on the network.
While local manufacturing experienced a slight decline of around four percent in 2023 due to import restrictions on mobile phone accessories, commercial imports saw an increase during the same period, the data reveals.
In 2023, local plants manufactured a total of 21.28 million handsets, compared to 21.94 million in 2022 and 24.66 million in 2021. However, commercial imports rose from 1.53 million in 2022 to 1.58 million in 2023.
In the fiscal year 2023-24, Pakistan witnessed a significant surge in mobile phone imports, reaching $1.148 million during the first eight months, marking a 156.43 percent increase from the same period in the previous fiscal year.
Despite this, mobile phone imports decreased by 17.46 percent month-on-month in February 2024, totaling $160.899 million, compared to $194.928 million in January 2024, according to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS).
On a year-on-year basis, mobile phone imports experienced a staggering 386.78 percent growth in February 2024 compared to February 2023, when imports were at $33.054 million.
