Telecom imports reach $1.39 billion

23 Mar, 2007

The country's telecom imports has reached $1.3904 billion during July-February 2006-07 registering 21 percent jump compared to $1.1497 billion during the corresponding period last year. Increasing cellular density and expansions on the part of the local operators drives the increase in the import under Telecom head including cellular phones and other apparatus.
Telecom imports during February stood at $167.243 million against $180.805 million in January similar year. According to the data provided by the Pakistan Federal Bureau of Statistics the country during February, imported $80.765 million worth of mobile phones, which was 37 percent up as compared to $59.102 million in January 2006. While the other telecom related apparatus accounted for $86.478 million 28.94 percent down as compared to $121.703 million in January.
The market experts have defined the tremendous growth in the country's cellular industry to be the major reason behind the elevating imports of mobile phones and other related apparatus. According to the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), the cellular subscription has surpassed the 50 million mark in January 2007 as compared to 12.8 million a year earlier.
Market analysts believe that the tough competition between the telecom operators has brought the cellular tariffs within the reach of a common man, which was one reason of escalation in the tele-density. Besides the service the technology was getting cheaper day-by-day and a new mobile phone set could be purchased for less than Rs 2000.
A spokesman of the dealers association said that the market was moving in the positive direction and there was no hint that the business had been affected. There was no affect on the demand of cellular handsets, however there was a little decline in the import of other related apparatus that could be attributed to over trading.
"If we go through the figures for the first quarter of current fiscal year we observe that there was over 40 percent growth in the mobile phone imports and if we compare the seven month figures with the previous year there is over 38 percent growth in the imports," he observed.
He added that the trend of changing cellular sets was very much in these days, as this had become a status symbol. The tendency of changing cells and keeping more than one cell has gone up many folds.
He maintained that in order to meet the demand the cellular sets were being imported from China and USA mainly and the rest of the world as well.

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