ISLAMABAD: The first eight months of current fiscal year has witnessed mobile phone import of US $ 478.137 million in the country, showing 9.11 per cent decline as compared to same period last year.

During same period (July-Feb 2017-18) the mobile phone import was US $ 526.033 million, these figures were revealed in data released by Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS).

As per details, mobile phone imports in February 2019 which stood at US $ 54.320 million, registered a 22.15 per cent decline as compared to US $ 69.779 million imports in February 2018.

The last month's figure was - 9.12 percent when compared to US $ 59.771 million in January 2019.

Overall telecom imports saw a decline of 9.91 per cent during July-February (2018-19) when compared to same period of last year.  Total imports were recorded at US $ 904.016 million during this period when compared to US$ 1.003 billion in July-February (2017-18).

This figure stood at US $ 120.565 million in February 2019 as compared to US $ 127.524 million during January 2019.

Other telecom apparatus imports witnessed a phenomenal decline of over 10.81 per cent in July-February (2018-19) as it stood at US$ 425.879 million against US$ 477.477 million during same period of last year.

Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) expects increased revenue from import of mobile devices annually after Device Identification Registration and Blocking System (DIRBS) implementation.