Pakistan’s spending on mobile phone imports rose sharply during the current fiscal year, pointing to strong consumer demand and a busy telecom market, according to official figures.
The latest data showed that Pakistan imported mobile phones worth $1.139 billion during the first seven months from July to January of fiscal year 2025-26. This was higher than $867.685 million recorded in the same period last year, marking an increase of more than 31.36 percent.
In local currency, the value of these imports reached Rs321.137 billion, compared to Rs241.330 billion a year earlier. This reflected a rise of 33.07 percent, showing that higher demand and prices both played a role.
Imports rise on monthly and yearly basis
On a monthly basis, mobile phone imports also moved up. The country imported phones worth $179.380 million in January 2026, up 12.60 percent from $159.304 million in December 2025. Compared with January 2025, when imports stood at $134.243 million, the increase was 33.62 percent.
Despite the recent rise, last fiscal year had shown a decline. Pakistan imported mobile phones worth $1.494 billion in fiscal year 2024-25, down 21.31 percent from $1.898 billion in fiscal year 2023-24. In rupee terms, imports fell to Rs417.351 billion from Rs535.690 billion, a drop of 22.09 percent.
Overall telecom imports during fiscal year 2024-25 stood at $2.099 billion, showing a negative growth of 11.30 percent compared to $2.366 billion in the previous year.
Local production remains strong
At the same time, local manufacturing continued to dominate the market. Manufacturing and assembling plants produced 30.21 million mobile handsets during the calendar year 2025, far higher than the 2.37 million units imported commercially.
In December 2025 alone, local plants produced 2.61 million handsets, while only 0.33 million units were imported.
Out of the total locally produced phones in 2025, about 15.64 million were smartphones and 14.57 million were 2G devices. Data from the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority showed that smartphones now make up 71 percent of devices on the country’s network, while 29 percent are still 2G phones.
The figures suggest that while imports are rising again, strong local production and growing smartphone use continue to shape Pakistan’s mobile phone market.
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