The local manufacturing plants have manufactured/assembled 3.94 million mobile phones handsets against 0.36 million commercially imported in February 2022, says the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA).

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 percent 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 the PTA.

The locally-manufactured/assembled 3.94 million mobile phones handsets include 2.38 million 2G and 1.56 million smartphones. Further as per the PTA data, 53 percent mobile devices are smartphones and 47 percent 2G on Pakistan network.

However, despite the increase in local production of mobile phones, Pakistan imported mobile phones worth $1.411 billion during the first eight (July-February) of 2021-22 compared to $1.311 billion during the same period of last year, registering a growth of 7.63 percent, despite the increase in local manufacturing, according to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS).

The PTA data revealed that the local manufacturing trend reflects a positive uptake on the PTA’s Mobile Device Manufacturing (MDM) Authorization regulatory regime, whereby, local manufacturing within the first year of regime introduction has resulted in production of 24.66 million phones in a short span of one year, including 10.06 million 4G smartphones.

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.

It has also contributed positively to the mobile ecosystem of Pakistan by eliminating counterfeit device market providing a level-playing field for commercial entities and has created trust among consumers due to the formulation of standardised legal channels for all sorts of device imports.

The government had introduced a mobile manufacturing policy to encourage and attract manufacturers to establish their units in Pakistan.

The PTA further reinforced this impact by issuing the Mobile Device Manufacturing (MDM) Regulations, 2021, that eased the process for obtaining a No-Objection Certificate (NoC) for manufacturing and local assembly of mobile phones in Pakistan. As many as 30 companies have obtained licenses so far, producing 10.1 million smart phones in 2021, while creating 2,000 jobs.

Samsung also joined the local manufacturing market in collaboration with local partners. Pakistan made history by exporting its first-ever smart phone consignment to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) under the “Manufactured in Pakistan” tag.

The story was originally published in Business Recorder on April 03, 2022.