Pakistan Made Over 14 Million Mobile Phones in Jan-Jul 2022

Local manufacturing plants produced/assembled 14.94 million mobile phone handsets during the first seven months (January-July) of 2022 compared to 1.16 million commercially imported ones, according to the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA). Local plants manufactured/assembled 0.86 million handsets in July 2022. This number was 24.66 million manufactured/assembled during the calendar year 2021 as compared to 13.05 million in 2020, indicating an 88 percent increase. The commercial imports of mobile phone handsets stood at 10.26 million in 2021 compared to 24.51 million in 2020, as per the PTA’s official data. The locally manufactured/assembled 14.94 million mobile phones handsets include 8.6 million 2G and 6.33 million smartphones. The PTA data showed that 54 percent of mobile devices are smartphones and 46 percent are 2G on the Pakistan network. Despite the increase in the local production of mobile phones, Pakistan imported mobile phones worth $38.804 million in July 2022, which registered a growth of 20.43 percent on a month-on-month (MoM) basis when compared to $32.221 million in June 2022, as noted by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS). According to its monthly data, mobile phone imports registered a negative growth of $67.46 on a year-on-year (YoY) basis compared to $119.237 million in July 2021. The successful implementation of the Device Identification Registration and Blocking System (DIRBS), along with conducive government policies, including the mobile manufacturing policy, has created a favorable environment for mobile device manufacturing in Pakistan. It has also contributed positively to Pakistan’s mobile ecosystem by eliminating the counterfeit device market and providing a level-playing field for commercial entities. In doing so, it has created trust among consumers due to the formulation of standardized legal channels for all sorts of device imports.