ISLAMABAD: Pakistan imported mobile phones worth $1.411 billion during the first eight months (July-February) of 2021-22 compared to $1.311 billion during the same period of last year, registering a growth of 7.63 percent, despite the increase in local manufacturing, according to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS).
The overall telecom imports into the country during the period under review (July-February) 2021-22 increased by 15.33 percent by going up from $1.619 billion in July-February 2020-21 to $1.868 billion in July-February 2021-22.
On a month-on-month basis, imports of mobile phones into Pakistan decreased by 21.45 percent during February 2022 and remained $141.207 million when compared to $179.765 million imported in January 2022, the PBS data revealed.
On year-on-year basis, mobile phones witnessed a decrease of 19.69 percent when compared to $175.821 million in February 2021.
On month-on-month basis, the overall telecom imports into the country decreased by 5.48 percent during February 2022 and remained $216.171 million, when compared to the imports of $228.712 million in January 2022. On year-on-year basis, overall telecom imports witnessed 8.89 percent decline when compared to $237.257 million in February2021. Other apparatus imports during July-February 2021-22 increased by 48.09 percent and remained $456.568 million compared to $308.304 million in July-February 2020-21.
Other apparatus imports registered 53.15 percent growth on month-on-month basis and remained $74.964 million in February2022 compared to $48.947 million in January 2022 and registered 22.02 percent growth when compared to $61.434 million in February2022.
The local manufacturing plants have manufactured/assembled 1.53 million mobile phones handsets against 0.14 million commercially imported in January 2022, says the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA).
The manufactured/assembled mobile phones handsets by local manufacturing plants during the calendar year 2021 stood at 24.66 million compared to 13.05 million in 2020, i.e. 88 percent increase.
The commercial imports of mobile phones handsets stood at 10.26 million in 2021 compared to 24.51 million in 2020.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022