13.6% Fall in Pakistan’s Mobile Imports in FY25’s Early Period

During the first four months of the current fiscal year 2024-25, the government imported mobile phones worth $420.799 million. This represents a decrease of 10.46% compared to the same time in the previous fiscal year when the value was $469.969 million.

In fiscal year 2023–24, Pakistan imported mobile phones valued at $1.898 billion, up from $570.071 million in fiscal year 2022–23.

Pakistan’s mobile handset imports for the first four months of the current fiscal year totaled 117.017 billion rupees, reflecting a 13.62% decline from 135.468 billion rupees during the same period last fiscal year.

Mobile Imports Jump 69.89% in October

In October 2024, the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) reported that mobile phone imports into the country reached $174.338 million, up from $102.618 million in September of the same year. This is a month-on-month (MoM) increase of 69.89 percent.

Imports of mobile phones increased by 5.06 percent year-on-year (YoY) to $165.941 million in October 2023.

Overall, telecommunications imports into the country increased by 0.44% from $606.833 million in July–October 2023 to $609.520 million in July–October 2024.

September 2024 had total telecom imports of $152.905 million, while October 2024 saw a 53.92% month-on-month increase to $235.349 million. When compared to $207.786 million in October 2023, global telecom imports had a YoY growth of 13.27 percent.

In the first nine months of 2024 (January–September), domestic manufacturing and assembling factories produced 22.59 million mobile devices, whereas 1.17 million were imported for commercial use. In September, 2.15 million mobile devices were made or assembled domestically, according to official statistics, while only 0.07 million were imported for commercial use.

The 22.59 million mobile phone devices made or assembled locally comprised 8.73 million 2G and 13.86 million smartphones. Also, according to PTA statistics, 64% of mobile devices in Pakistan are smartphones, while 36% are 2G.