During the first four months (July-October) of the fiscal year 2023-24, Pakistan imported mobile phones valued at $469.992 million, indicating a growth of 107.91% compared to $226.051 million in the same period last year.

In October 2023, mobile phone imports in Pakistan increased by 33.20% on a month-on-month basis, reaching $165.941 million, compared to $124.576 million in September 2023. On a year-on-year basis, October 2023 showed a significant growth of 152.27% compared to $65.780 million in October 2022.

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The overall telecom imports for July-October 2023 amounted to $606.865 million, marking a 75.60% increase from $345.595 million in the same period last fiscal year. On a year-on-year basis, telecom imports in October 2023 grew by 114.65%, reaching $207.789 million compared to $96.805 million in October 2022. On a month-on-month basis, overall telecom imports in October 2023 increased by 30.94% compared to $158.688 million in September 2023.

Local manufacturers assembled 13.02 million mobile handsets in the first nine months (January-September) of 2023, surpassing the 1.09 million commercially imported phones. In September 2023, they assembled 2.15 million mobile handsets compared to 0.25 million commercially imported. In the calendar year 2022, manufacturing plants assembled 21.94 million mobile handsets, showing a decline from 24.66 million in 2021, mainly due to challenges in imports related to the restriction of opening letters of credit (LCs).

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) reported that locally manufactured/assembled mobile phone handsets in 2022 included 9.01 million 2G and 4.02 million smartphones. According to the PTA, 57% of mobile devices are smartphones, and 43% are 2G mobile phones.