Pakistan Telecommunication Authority has licensed 37 companies to manufacture or assemble mobile phones in the country, as local production continues to expand and now meets around 92 percent of domestic smartphone demand. The figure was shared by PTA Chairman Major General (Retired) Hafeez Ur Rehman while briefing the National Assembly Standing Committee on Information Technology, chaired by Syed Amin Ul Haque.
During the briefing, the PTA chairman acknowledged that taxes on some mobile phones reach as high as 60 percent, describing the rate as too high for consumers. He clarified that these taxes are not levied by PTA, whose role is limited to operating the Device Identification, Registration and Blocking System and the whitelisting of mobile devices, and that the authority does not determine or even track the exact tax applied to individual smartphone models. He added that PTA regularly recommends tax reductions to the government through the Ministry of Information Technology.
Committee Chairman Syed Amin Ul Haque said smartphones can no longer be considered luxury items, arguing that mobile phones have become an everyday necessity and that high taxes make access to technology more difficult for ordinary citizens. The PTA chairman told the committee that around 26 million mobile phones are currently being assembled in Pakistan, with only about 8 percent of devices in the market being imported, primarily premium models such as Apple’s iPhones and Google’s Pixel devices, which remain subject to import duties and taxes.
The absence of Apple from Pakistan’s market again drew pointed questions during the session, with Syed Amin Ul Haque asking why the company has established a presence in India and Bangladesh but not in Pakistan, given that firms including Nokia and Samsung already manufacture locally. Following the discussion, the committee directed the Ministry of Information Technology to engage directly with Apple and encourage the company to enter the Pakistani market, with lawmakers arguing that the arrival of major global technology brands would improve consumer choice and strengthen the country’s broader digital ecosystem.
The session forms part of a broader push by Pakistani authorities to deepen local mobile manufacturing beyond simple assembly, with the Engineering Development Board having drafted a new Mobile Phone Manufacturing Policy for 2026 to 2033 aimed at moving the sector from assembly toward genuine component level manufacturing and export competitiveness. Despite the growth in the number of licensed manufacturers, industry data shows that more than 90 percent of components used in locally assembled phones continue to be imported, underscoring the gap between the scale of local assembly achieved so far and the deeper industrial localisation policymakers are now trying to encourage.
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