ISLAMABAD: The country imported mobile phones worth $420.799 million in the first four months (July-October) of the current fiscal year 2024-25, registering a negative growth of 10.46 percent when compared to $469.969 million during the same period of the last fiscal year 2023-24.
Pakistan imported mobile phones worth $1.898 billion during the fiscal year 2023-24, compared to $570.071 million during the fiscal year 2022-23.
In rupee terms, the country imported mobile handsets worth Rs117.017 billion during the first four months of the current fiscal year and registered negative growth of 13.62 per cent when compared to Rs135.468 billion during the same period of last fiscal year.
Q1 mobile phones import down 18.93pc to $246.47m YoY
Pakistan’s mobile phone imports increased by 69.89 percent on a Month-on-Month (MoM) basis in October 2024 and stood at $174.338 million compared to imports of $102.618 million in September 2024, according to the data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS).
Year-on-Year (YoY) basis, mobile phone imports witnessed growth of 5.06 per cent when compared to $165.941 million in October 2023.
The overall telecom imports into the country stood at $609.520 million during July-October 2024 and registered 0.44 per cent growth compared to $606.833 million during July-October 2023.
Overall telecom imports increased by 53.92 per cent on a MoM basis in October 2024 and stood at $235.349 million compared to imports of $152.905 million in September 2024. On a YoY basis, overall telecom imports witnessed growth of 13.27 per cent when compared to $207.786 million in October 2023.
The local manufacturing/ assembling plants manufactured/ assembled 22.59 million mobile handsets during the first nine months (January-September) of the calendar year 2024 compared to 1.17 million imported commercially.
Official data revealed that the locally manufactured/ assembled 2.15 million mobile handsets in September compared to 0.07 million imported commercially.
The locally manufactured/ assembled 22.59 million mobile phone handsets included 8.73 million 2G and 13.86 million smartphones.
Besides, as per the PTA data, 64 per cent of mobile devices are smartphones, and 36 per cent are 2G on the Pakistan network.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024