The local manufacturing and assembling of mobile handsets in Pakistan hit 2.27 million in January compared with 0.24 million imported commercially, Business Recorder reported.

Out of the total 2.27 million mobile phone handsets, 0.72 million were 2G phones while as many as 1.55 million smartphones were locally manufactured/assembled.

According to official data by PTA, 60% of mobile devices were smartphones, and 40% were 2G on the Pakistan network.

In 2023, the local manufacturing/assembling of mobile handsets declined by around 4% owing to import issues due to restrictions placed on the opening of Letters of Credit (LCs) for mobile phone accessories.

However, the commercial imports of mobile handsets increased during the period despite the decline in local manufacturing/assembling, official data revealed.

The locally manufactured/assembled handset by plants declined to 21.28 million mobile handsets during 2023 compared with 21.94 million during the same period of 2022 and 24.66 million in 2021.

Out of the total 21.28 million mobile phone handsets, 13 million were 2G, and 8.28 million were smartphones.

On the other hand, commercial imports of cell phones increased to 1.58 million in 2023 from 1.53 million in 2022.

The mobile phones import recorded a significant increase of 138.08% to clock-in at $987.539 million during the first half (July-January) of the current fiscal year 2023-24, compared with $414.800 million during the same period of last year.

On a month-on-month basis, the country’s mobile phone imports increased by 10.70% in January as it reached $194.928 million compared with the imports of $176.093 million in December 2023, according to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS).

Meanwhile, mobile phone imports registered a 275.15% hike on a Year-on-Year basis in January 2024 as against $51.960 million in January 2023.