According to Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA), the local manufacturing plants of Pakistan assembled whopping 7.16 million phones from January to March 2022. On the contrary, during the first quarter of this year, Pakistan imported 0.61 million devices. The month of March witnessed the import of 0.15 million phones while 3.52 million handsets were locally produced in Pakistan. World’s leading brands including Nokia, Oppo, Samsung, Tecno, Vivo, Xiaomi, ZTE, etc. are now being manufactured in Pakistan.
The increasing numbers in the production is a result of successful implementation of Device Identification Registration and Blocking System (DIRBS) in the country. A consumer is required to pay a hefty amount of tax on the import of a cell phone as a duty to use it completely. This is one of the reasons local manufacturing plants are producing more devices. Furthermore, the government has also softened its policies towards manufacturing which has established an encouraging environment for mobile device manufacturing. As a result, manufacturers have established their units in Pakistan.
The move made Pakistan a smartphone exporter as first consignment was also sent to UAE under ‘Manufactured in Pakistan’ tag.
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The numbers are glorifying
In 2021, Pakistan manufactured 24.66 million mobile handsets in comparison to mere 13.05 million devices in 2020. There has been an increase of colossal 88% in the production between the two years. On the other hand, Pakistan imported 10.26 million devices in 2021 in comparison to 24.51 million in 2020.
As per PTA’s data, out of 7.16 million locally imported devices in Q1 of 2022, 4.33 million are 2G handsets while 2.83 million are 3G and 4G smartphones.
Nonetheless, the rising increase in the local production of the handsets did not stop people from importing smartphones. The period from July 2021 – March 2022 recorded the import of worth $1.596 billion smartphones. A growth of 3.93% was observed in comparison to worth $1.535 billion of smartphones in 2020 during the same period.
Notably, 30 companies have secured licenses so far to assemble devices in Pakistan. Resultantly, this has created ample amount of employment opportunities within the country.
