Today the number of mobile phone subscribers in Pakistan, which has emerged as one of the fastest growing markets in the world, has expanded to a record 60.90 million. Resultantly, the import of mobile phone sets has increased manifold during the last few years, having reached the figure of over one million sets per month.
Official figures for imports of mobile phone handsets are of the value $630 million in the fiscal year 2006-07(until May), contributing to Pakistan's record total import bill for the year. During the month of November 2006 alone the country imported phone sets worth $77,690 compared to $24,520 in October 2005, registering an increase of more than two hundred percent.
Unfortunately, our planners did not visualise the phenomenal growth in demand for mobile phone sets and therefore no efforts were made, during the last seven years or so, to create local facilities for the manufacturing of the same. In fact, technology transfer to the local engineering industry for the production of handsets should have been mandatory on the part of cellular phone companies while granting license to operate, as demonstrated in India, China and other countries.
It will not be too late for the government to initiate to adopting necessary measures to promote investment in this lucrative and expanding area in the larger national interest. It is estimated that by December this year the number of subscribers will increase to 78 million placing demand for additional handsets of at least 17 million costing about three billion dollars or more.