Pakistan’s local mobile phone industry is showing strong growth, with manufacturing and assembling plants producing 4.57 million handsets in the first two months of 2026, while imports remained much lower at 0.87 million units. February alone saw 2.88 million phones made locally, signaling a growing shift towards homegrown production.
Official data shows that in the first two months of 2026, local plants produced 2.03 million smartphones and 2.54 million basic 2G phones. According to the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), around 71% of mobile devices used on local networks are smartphones, while 29% remain 2G devices.
Local Manufacturing in 2025
Looking at the full year 2025, local manufacturers assembled 30.21 million handsets, compared to just 2.37 million imported commercially. This marks a clear trend: Pakistan is increasingly relying on its own manufacturing sector to supply mobile phones, rather than imports.
Shifting Trends
Despite the growth in local production, Pakistan’s mobile phone imports continue to show mixed trends. In the first eight months of the current fiscal year (July 2025-February 2026), imports were valued at $1.295 billion, up 29.59% from $999.555 million during the same period last year. In Pakistani rupees, this translates to Rs 364.684 billion, up 31.10% from Rs 278.162 billion previously.
On a monthly comparison, however, imports in February 2026 fell by 13.26% compared to January 2026, totaling $155.547 million versus $179.336 million. Year-on-year, imports still rose 17.95% compared to February 2025. Meanwhile, in the last fiscal year 2024-25, Pakistan imported phones worth $1.494 billion, down 21.31% from the previous year.
