Islamabad: Pakistan’s mobile phone manufacturing industry witnessed an encouraging trend with the production of 1.21 million mobile phones in the first two months of 2021. These phones were manufactured at the 33 local mobile devices assembly plants in Pakistan.
The number of smartphones assembled and produced in January and February 2021 indicate a significant increase as compared to the last two years. The country produced 2.1 million smartphone devices in 2020 and 119,639 in 2019, according to Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA).
The country has produced over 25 million mobile devices including 4G smartphones following the successful implementation of PTA’s Device Identification, Registration and Blocking System (DIRBS).
“With the successful execution of DIRBS, the local assembly industry has evolved from infancy to well-growing stage, with significant growth seen in the local assembly of smartphones,” PTA said. The system implemented in 2019 also led to a significant increase in legal imports of mobile devices.
In 2020, Pakistan approved its first mobile device manufacturing policy to attract investment and encourage manufacturers of major cell phone brands to set up plants in Pakistan.
Job opportunities
The policy also aims to create more job opportunities in Pakistan, create smartphone research and development centers and boost the production of electronic equipment in Pakistan.
The government’s offered several tax incentives and abolished withholding tax on locally assembled phones which encouraged the investors to set up companies in Pakistan, says Minister for Information Technology and Telecommunication Syed Amin ul Haque.
Leading smartphone brand Infinix currently has the largest mobile phone production and assembly plant in Pakistan where 3 million units are produced each year.
Vivo, Airlink and Advance Telecom are the three new companies that will soon establish their manufacturing units in Faisalabad, Lahore and Karachi.
PTA also received several mobile device manufacturing applications after finalizing its mobile device manufacturing regulations which “will help create more jobs in this technical sector, as well as enable consumers to buy locally manufactured mobile devices.”
5G connectivity
Pakistan’s telecom sector offers attractive investment opportunities as it boasts of 178 million mobile phone subscribers with 93 million 3G-4G users, according to the January 2021 data.
Pakistan is also set to launch 5G mobile phone connectivity by December 2022 following a successful trial by PTA in February 2021.
The demonstrations included remote surgery, cloud gaming and overview of anticipated 5G technology applications for social and economic development of Pakistan.
“With the successful 5G trial in a limited environment, we believe that this technology will unlock new realities for eHealth, smart homes and cities, agriculture, autonomous vehicles, cloud computing, Internet of Things and Artificial Intelligence” Nadeem Khan, acting CEO of PTCL Group said.
