ISLAMABAD: The local manufacturing plants have manufactured/ assembled 12.41 million phones handsets during the first five months (January-May) of 2022 compared to 0.94 million imported commercially, says the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA).
The local manufacturing plants have manufactured/ assembled 2.69 million mobile phones handsets in May 2022.
The manufactured/ assembled mobile phones handsets by local manufacturing plants during the calendar year 2021 stood at 24.66 million compared to 13.05 million in 2020, i.e., 88 per cent increase.
The commercial imports of mobile phones handsets stood at 10.26 million in 2021 compared to 24.51 million in 2020, revealed the official data of PTA.
The locally manufactured/ assembled 12.41 million mobile phones handsets include 6.99 million 2G and 5.42 million smartphones. Further as per the PTA data, 53 per cent mobile devices are smartphones and 47 per cent 2G on Pakistan network.
However, despite the increase in local production of mobile phones, Pakistan imported mobile phones worth $1.946 billion during the first eleven months (July-May) of 2021-22 compared to $1.860 billion during the same period of last year, registering a growth of 4.62 per cent, despite the increase in local manufacturing, said the PBS data.
The overall telecom imports into the country during the period under review (July-May) 2021-22 increased by 11.15 per cent by going up from $2.337 billion in July-May 2020-21 to $2.597 billion during the same period of last period.
On a month-on-month basis, imports of mobile phones into Pakistan decreased by 35.54 per cent during May 2022 and remained $137.213 million when compared to $212.881 million imported in April 2022, the data revealed.
On year-on-year basis, mobile phones witnessed a 21.82 per cent negative growth when compared to $175.501 million in May 2021.
The successful implementation of Device Identification Registration and Blocking System (DIRBS) along with conducive government policies including the mobile manufacturing policy has created a favourable environment for mobile device manufacturing in Pakistan.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022