TAHIR AMIN

ISLAMAABD: Pakistan imported mobile phones worth $ 290.570 million during the first five months (July-November) of the current fiscal year 2022-23, registering a negative growth of 66.08 percent when compared to $ 856.730 million during the same period of last year.

The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) data showed that on a month-on-month (MoM) basis mobile phone imports registered 1.92 percent negative growth and stood at $ 64.520 million in November 2022 when compared to $ 65.780 million in October 2022.

Mobile phone imports registered 69.57 percent negative growth on a year-on-year (YoY) basis in November 2022 when compared to $ 212.058 million during the same month of last year.

The overall telecom imports into the country stood at $ 455.731 million during the first five months of fiscal year 2022-23 and registered 59.67 percent negative growth when compared to $ 1.130 billion during the same period of last fiscal year.

However, on a YoY basis, the overall telecom imports registered a negative growth of 61.16 percent and stood at $ 110.136 million when compared to $ 283.537 million in November 2021-22. On MoM basis overall telecom imports registered 13.77 percent growth in November 2022 when compared to $ 96.805 million during October 2022.

Other apparatus imports stood at $ 165.161 million in July-November 2022 and registered 39.59 percent negative growth when compared to $ 273.380 million during the same period of the last fiscal year.

On a year-on-year basis, other apparatus remained at $ 45.616 million in November 2022 and registered 36.18 percent negative growth when compared to $ 71.479 million in November 2021 and registered 47.03 percent growth on MoM basis when compared to $ 31.025 million in October 2022.

Local manufacturing plants have manufactured/assembled 18.14 million phones handsets during the first ten months – January to October 2022 - compared to 1.29 million commercially imported phones handsets, said the Pakistan Telecommunica-tion Authority (PTA).

The local manufacturing plants have manufactured/assembled 1.44 million mobile phones handsets in October 2022.

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 - a landmark increase of 88 percent. 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 PTA.

The locally manufactured/assembled 18.14 million mobile phones handsets included 10.51 million 2G and 7.63 million smart phones. Besides, as per the PTA data, 55 percent mobile devices are smart phones and 45 percent 2G on Pakistan network.