Local manufacturing of mobiles down 43% in January

Local manufacturing of mobile phones was hit hard in January. According to the report, domestic manufacturing plants in Pakistan produced 0.87 million mobile phones during January 2023 as against 0.07 million commercially imported in the same month.

According to Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) data, locally assembled mobiles include 0.56 million 2G and 0.3 million smart handsets.

Last year in January 2022, Pakistan assembled around 1.53 million devices. In contrast, manufacturing declined by 43% this year.

As we know that the economic condition of Pakistan is very bad and every company and sector is badly affected by inflation and high prices of essential commodities. Hence the mobile phone companies have also faced a significant decline.

According to the analysis, Pakistan’s consumer price inflation reached 31.5 percent in February 2023. This is the highest rate since June 1974.
Along with this, economic difficulties have increased as a result of last year’s disastrous floods. The Pakistani government is constantly trying to deal with it, but the situation is getting worse day by day.
This not only affected the mobile sector but further increased the cost of all components. Transport sector affected by 50.5% Vs. 39.1% in January — housing and utilities 13.4% vs. 7.8%, Culture, and Entertainment 48% Vs. 44.1% analysis suggests that every sector is affected by the situation.
However, the month-on-month decline was even higher, as the number of mobile handsets declined by a large amount, more than 61 percent compared to the 2.24 million handsets manufactured in December 2022.
However, it is important to mention that domestic manufacturing plants are expected to produce 21.94 million handsets in 2022. Compared to 2021, which was 24.66 million. This reduction is mainly due to import restrictions.

Mobile imports

During the first seven months of the fiscal year 2022-23, Pakistan imported mobile phones worth $414.801 million, which is a 67.35 percent decrease from $1.270 billion imported during the previous year.
Moreover, Pakistan Statistics Bureau (PSB) data shows that monthly mobile handsets imports showed a negative growth of 28.12% and stood at $51.960 million in January 2023. Compared to $72.291 million in December 2022.
Earlier, when the economic condition of the country was stable in 2022, the Mobile Device Manufacturing Policy formulated by EDB aimed to promote local manufacturing of mobile devices in Pakistan. However, it was intended to provide an attractive environment for investors under the government’s “Make in Pakistan” Policy