Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif is expected to meet Apple CEO John Ternus in the United States to discuss the company’s potential entry into Pakistan, with the meeting likely to be arranged when the premier travels to Washington for a series of high profile engagements in the coming months. The development was shared by Engineering Development Board (EDB) Chief Executive Officer Hammad Mansoor on Thursday while briefing the National Assembly Standing Committee on Information Technology and Telecommunication, marking one of the clearest signals yet that talks to bring Apple into the country have moved beyond informal outreach and into direct engagement at the highest level of government. Mansoor told the committee that Pakistan currently has 37 companies manufacturing mobile phones locally, which have collectively produced more than 35 million handsets to date, underscoring how far the domestic assembly industry has grown even as Apple remains the one major smartphone brand still absent from that manufacturing base.
According to Mansoor, Apple is the only major smartphone company that does not currently manufacture phones in Pakistan, and the government has been actively trying to attract the company to establish manufacturing or assembly operations in the country as part of a broader push to deepen local production across the electronics sector. He added that the anticipated meeting between Shehbaz Sharif and Ternus in the US could form a concrete part of these efforts, giving Pakistani officials a direct channel to make the case for Apple’s entry rather than relying solely on lower level trade and diplomatic contacts. The timing lines up with the prime minister’s broader upcoming visit to the United States, which is expected to include a number of other high profile meetings, suggesting that the Apple discussion would be one thread among several economic and diplomatic priorities on that trip.
Committee chairman Aminul Haque, who chaired Thursday’s session, welcomed the expansion of local mobile phone manufacturing but stressed that Pakistan needs to push domestic production further rather than treating the current 37 company, 35 million handset base as a finishing point. He said locally made phones should be both affordable and built to meet quality standards, and he specifically called for greater focus on locally produced 4G and 5G devices instead of continuing to lean on older 3G technology, a point that speaks to broader concerns within the committee about the pace at which Pakistan’s device ecosystem is keeping up with global technology shifts. The remarks suggest that while the government views Apple’s potential entry as a symbolic and strategic win, lawmakers are equally focused on strengthening the existing base of local assemblers already operating in the country.
An Apple entry into Pakistan’s manufacturing sector would mark a significant shift for a market where the company has so far maintained only a retail and service presence, including its recently established Apple store, without any local assembly footprint. Other major international brands already manufacture phones domestically, and officials have repeatedly pointed to this gap as an anomaly they want to close, framing it as both an investment win and a signal of confidence in Pakistan’s manufacturing environment. Whether the Shehbaz-Ternus meeting actually takes place as described, and what specific commitments might emerge from it, will likely become clearer only once the prime minister’s US visit is formally scheduled and its agenda made public in the weeks ahead.
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