Local manufacturing plants produced 7.16 million phones handsets during the first three months of 2022 against 0.61 million commercially imported units, according to the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA).

Additionally, 3.52 million mobile phones handsets were manufactured in March against the commercial imports of 0.15 million handsets.

Locally manufactured mobile phones handsets numbered 24.66 million in 2021 as compared to 13.05 million in 2020, which is an increase of 88 percent. Conversely, the commercial imports of mobile phones handsets in 2021 stood at 10.26 million against 24.51 million in 2020, as per the PTA data.

The locally manufactured 7.16 million mobile phones handsets included 4.33 million 2G and 2.83 million 3G and 4G smartphones. The PTA data also revealed that 53 percent of the handsets are smartphones and 47 percent are 2G handsets.

However, despite the increase in the local production of mobile phones, mobile phones worth $1.596 billion were imported during the first nine months (July-March) of 2021-22 as compared to $1.535 billion during the same period last year, registering a growth of 3.93 percent.

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