During the financial year 2023-24, a 233 percent increase was recorded in the import of mobile phones.
According to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS), mobile phones worth $1.898 billion were imported during the fiscal year 2023-24, which shows an increase of 233 percent compared to $570.071 million in the fiscal year 2022-23.
In terms of rupees, mobile phones worth Rs 535.690 billion were imported during the financial year 2023-24, which shows an increase of 291.45% compared to Rs 136.847 billion during 2022-23.
According to data, mobile phone imports increased by 76.77% every month in June 2024.
In May 2024, compared to $157.592 million, $278.574 million was recorded.
Mobile phone imports recorded a 419.90% YoY growth in June 2024 from $53.582 million in June 2023.
During the financial year 2023-24, the total telecom revenues increased by 147.36% to 2.366 billion dollars from 956.696 million dollars in the financial year 2022-23.
A 232% increase in overall telecom imports was recorded on a year-on-year basis. In June 2024, it was 320.094 million dollars, which was 96.415 million dollars in June 2023.
Based on MOM, total telecom imports recorded a growth of 51.28% in June 2024 from $211.586 million in May 2024.
Domestic manufacturing/assembling plants produced/assembled 13.08 million mobile handsets during the first five months (January-May) of the calendar year 2024 while 0.76 million mobile handsets were commercially imported. Official data shows that 2.23 million mobile handsets were locally manufactured/assembled in May while 0.11 million were commercially imported.
13.08 million locally manufactured/assembled mobile phone handsets including 4.98 million 2G and 8.1 million smartphones.
Also, according to PTA data, 61 percent of mobile devices are smartphones while 39 percent are 2G on the Pakistan network.
Local manufacturing/assembling of mobile handsets declined by around 4% during the calendar year 2023 due to import issues due to the ban on opening letters of credit (LC) for mobile phone accessories, however, official data showed. According to the commercial imports of mobile handsets increased during this period despite the restrictions.
Local manufacturing plants produced/assembled 21.28 million mobile handsets during calendar year 2023
While 21.94 million mobile handsets were produced during the same period in 2022 and 24.66 million in 2021, commercial imports increased from 1.53 million in 2022 to 1.58 million in 2023.
Additionally, 21.28 million domestically produced mobile phones handsets include 13 million 2G and 8.28 million smartphones.
