ISLAMABAD: Local manufacturing/assembling of mobile handsets declined by around four percent during the calendar year 2023, attributable to issues in imports on account of restriction on opening letters of credit (LCs) for mobile phone accessories.
However, despite restrictions, commercial imports of mobile handsets increased during this period, official data revealed.
Local manufacturing plants have manufactured/assembled 21.28 million mobile handsets during the calendar year 2023 compared to 21.94 million during the same period of 2022 and 24.66 million in 2021. However, commercial imports increased from 1.53 million in 2022 to 1.58 million in 2023.
Further, the locally manufactured/ assembled 21.28 million mobile phones handsets included 13 million 2G and 8.28 million smartphones.
Besides, as per the PTA data, 59 per cent of mobile devices are smartphones, and 41 per cent are 2G on the Pakistan network.
The country imported mobile phones worth $ 792.612 million during the first half (July-December) of the current fiscal year 2023-24, registering a growth of 118.45 per cent when compared to $ 362.841 million during the same period of last year.
Pakistan’s mobile phone imports increased by 20.16 percent on a month-on-month (MoM) basis in December 2023 and stood at $ 176.093 million compared to imports of $ 146.549 million in November 2023, according to data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS).
Mobile phone imports registered 143.59 percent growth on a year-on-year (YoY) basis in December 2023 when compared to $ 72.291 million in December 2022.
The overall telecom imports into the country stood at $ 1.010 billion during July-December 2023 and registered 78.64 percent growth compared to $ 565.720 million during the same period of the last fiscal year.
On a YoY basis, the overall telecom imports registered a growth of 96.43 percent and stood at $ 216.263 million in December 2023 compared to $ 110.095 million in December 2022. On a MoM basis, the overall telecom imports registered 15.29 percent growth in December 2023 compared to $ 187.580 million during November 2023.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024
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