ISLAMABAD: Pakistan imported mobile phones worth $362.862 million during the first half (July-December) of the current fiscal year 2022-23, registering a negative growth of 66.73 percent when compared to $1.090 billion during the same period last year.
The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) data shows that on a month-on-month (MoM) basis, mobile phone imports registered 12.04 percent growth and stood at $72.291 million in December 2022 when compared to $64.520 million in November 2022.
Mobile phone imports registered 69.10 percent negative growth on a year-on-year (YoY) basis in December 2022 when compared to $233.917 million during the same month of last year.
The overall telecom imports into the country stood at $565.896 million during the first half of the current fiscal year 2022-23 and registered 60.24 per cent negative growth when compared to $1.423 billion during the same period of last fiscal year.
However, on a YoY basis, the overall telecom imports registered a negative growth of 62.43 per cent and stood at $110.165 million when compared to $293.193 million in December 2021. On MoM basis, overall telecom imports registered 0.03 per cent growth in December 2022 when compared to $110.136 million during November 2022.
Other apparatus imports stood at $203.035 million in July-December 2022 and registered 38.97 per cent negative growth when compared to $323.656 million during the same period of the last fiscal year.
Mobile phones worth $290.57m imported in five months
On a year-on-year basis, other apparatus remained at $37.874 million in December 2022 and registered 36.11 per cent negative growth when compared to $59.276 million in December 2021 and registered 16.97 per cent negative growth on MoM basis when compared to $45.616 million in November 2022.
Local manufacturing plants have manufactured/assembled 19.7 million phones handsets during the first eleven months – January to November 2022 - compared to 1.37 million commercially imported phones handsets, says the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA).
The local manufacturing plants have manufactured/assembled 1.56 million mobile phones handsets in November 2022.
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 - a landmark increase of 88 per cent. The commercial imports of mobile phones handsets stood at 10.26 million in 2021 compared to 24.51 million in 2020, revealed the official data of the PTA.
The locally-manufactured/assembled 19.7 million mobile phones handsets included 11.5 million 2G and 8.2 million smart phones.
Besides, as per the PTA data, 55 per cent mobile devices are smart phones and 45 per cent 2G on Pakistan network.
The successful implementation of Device Identification Registration and Blocking System (DIRBS) along with conducive government policies including the mobile manufacturing policy has created a favourable environment for mobile device manufacturing in Pakistan.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023