Jan-July 2023: 8.07m mobile phones manufactured by local plants

ISLAMABAD: Local manufacturing plants have manufactured/assembled 8.07 million mobile handsets during the first seven months (January-July) of 2023 compared to 0.82 million imported commercially.

The official data suggested that local manufacturing plants have manufactured/assembled two million mobile handsets during July 2023 compared to 0.29 million imported commercially.

Local manufacturing plants manufactured/assembled 21.94 million mobile handsets during the calendar year 2022 compared to 24.66 million in 2021, i.e. registered a decline, attributable to issues in imports on account of restricting the opening of letters of credit (LCs).

Around 21.94 million mobile handsets were assembled during the calendar year 2022 - compared to 1.53 million commercially imported phones handsets, said the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA).

The locally manufactured/assembled 8.07 million mobile phone handsets included 6.04 million 2G and 2.03 million smartphones.

Besides, as per the PTA data, 56 percent of mobile devices are smartphones, and 44 percent are 2G on the Pakistan network.

The country imported mobile phones worth $ 68.135 million in July 2023 and registered 75.59 percent growth on a year-on-year basis when compared to $ 38.804 million in July 2022, according to data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS).

Pakistan’s mobile phone imports increased by 27.16 percent on a month-on-month (MoM) basis in July 2023 when compared to imports of $ 53.583 million in June 2023.

The overall telecom imports into the country stood at $ 90.683 million during July 2023 and registered a 32.16 percent growth as compared to $ 68.615 million during July 2022.

On a MoM basis, the overall telecom imports registered 6.01 percent negative growth in July 2023 compared to $ 96.481 million during June 2023.

Other apparatus imports stood at $ 22.548 million in July 2023 and registered 24.36 percent negative growth compared to $ 29.811 million during the same period of 2022. On MoM basis, other apparatus imports witnessed 47.44 percent negative growth when compared to $ 42.898 million in June 2023.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023