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Pakistan’s mobile phone imports increased sharply during the first half of the current fiscal year, reflecting higher inbound shipments despite a broader trend of import compression in recent years.
Official data shows that Pakistan imported mobile phones worth $960.462 million during July- December of fiscal year 2025-26, compared to $733.441 million in the same period last year, marking a growth of 30.95%.
In rupee terms, the value of mobile phone imports rose to Rs 270.859 billion during the first six months of the fiscal year, up from Rs 203.924 billion in the corresponding period of the previous year, registering a 32.82% increase.
On a month-on-month basis, mobile phone imports edged up by 1.78% in December 2025, reaching $159.335 million, compared to $156.552 million in November. However, year-on-year data shows a 2.40% decline when compared with $163.257 million recorded in December 2024.
During the full fiscal year 2024-25, Pakistan imported mobile phones worth $1.494 billion, reflecting a 21.31% decline from $1.898 billion in fiscal year 2023-24. In rupee terms, imports stood at Rs 417.351 billion, down 22.09% from Rs 535.690 billion a year earlier.
Overall telecom imports during fiscal year 2024-25 amounted to $2.099 billion, showing a negative growth of 11.30% compared to $2.366 billion in the previous fiscal year.
Meanwhile, local mobile phone manufacturing and assembly continued to dominate supply. Official figures indicate that 30.21 million mobile handsets were manufactured or assembled locally during the calendar year 2025, while 2.37 million units were imported commercially. In December 2025, local plants produced or assembled 2.61 million handsets, compared to 0.33 million imported units during the same month.
The total locally assembled devices included 15.64 million smartphones and 14.57 million 2G phones. According to data from the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), 71% of mobile devices currently active on Pakistan’s network are smartphones, while 29% are 2G handsets.
