The country imported mobile phones worth $143.889 million in the first two months (July-August) of the current fiscal year 2024-25, showing a decrease of 19.82% compared to $179.453 million during the same period of the last fiscal year 2023-24. Pakistan imported mobile phones worth $1.898 billion during the fiscal year 2023-24, compared to $570.071 million during the fiscal year 2022-23. In terms of Pakistani rupees, the country imported mobile handsets worth Rs40.069 billion during the first two months of the current fiscal year, showing a decrease of 22.73% compared to Rs51.853 billion during the same period of the last fiscal year. Pakistan’s mobile phone imports increased by 23.14% in August 2024 compared to July 2024, with imports at $79.406 million in August 2024 and $64.483 million in July 2024, according to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS).
In August 2023, the imports of mobile phones experienced a negative growth of 28.68 percent compared to $111.339 million. The total telecom imports for July-August 2024 amounted to $221.725 million, showing a 7.73 percent decrease compared to $240.293 million during the same period in 2023. Additionally, there was a 16.36 percent increase in overall telecom imports on a month-over-month (MoM) basis in August 2024, with imports totaling $119.247 million compared to $102.478 million in July 2024. On a year-on-year (YoY) basis, the overall telecom imports witnessed a negative growth of 20.34 percent compared to $149.704 million in August 2023.
Furthermore, local manufacturing and assembly plants produced 18.95 million mobile handsets in the first seven months of 2024, while one million were imported commercially. Data also shows that 1.61 million mobile handsets were locally manufactured or assembled in July, compared to 0.16 million imported commercially. Of the 18.95 million locally manufactured or assembled mobile handsets, 6.85 million were 2G devices and 12.1 million were smartphones. According to PTA data, 62 percent of mobile devices in Pakistan are smartphones, while 38 percent are 2G devices.
