LAHORE: Mobile phone import bill, on a month-on-month basis, in July doubled in terms of value from $37.3 million to $73.8m (97.85 per cent), claimed a report published in Dawn.
The massive increase in mobile phone imports bill was unanticipated given the fact that inward shipments of handsets had consistently been declining during the last fiscal year amid sharp currency depreciation and hefty taxes and regulatory duties imposed by the government as part of its plan to compress demand in the wake of a balance-of-payments crisis.
The latest data for August has not been compiled yet, according to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics Director (Trade) office in Karachi.
Cumulatively, mobile phone import bill dropped by almost a fifth from $741.8m in FY18 to $596.4m in FY19, according to data published by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP). On a year-on-year basis, the handset imports in July rose by above 14pc ($64.6m) compared to the same month last year.
Similarly, the data on Pakistan’s mobile phones market compiled by Canalys — a leading global technology market firm — shows mobile phone imports shrank significantly in terms of number of handsets from the last financial year. From a monthly average of 1.1m phones brought into the country during FY18, the number decreased to the monthly average of 0.8m in FY19.
According to the report, industry resources say that massive currency devaluation over the last year forced users to switch away from high-end, expensive handsets to reasonably priced ones, offering similar features.
Does it also means that govt efforts to curb under invoicing and smuggling is gaining momentum???
Veryy Nice Article
Smuggled mobiles stopped.
Legal imports counts.
It means 50% was being smuggled.
Mobile Phone local assembly/manufacturing of PC boards, casing/body, touch key board, etc., etc., start from a deletion program partial to mainain quality and export to China as part of the bilateral treaty of import/export. The TIP Haripur, Hazara factory is lying idle. The Govt., can offer to Huawei Technologies to assemble phone from Haripur, Hazara at the TIP instead of selling. They can make a helipad also to and from Islamabad Airpot to TIP Haripur, Hazara. With the Hong Meng OS of Huawei we can support from Pakistan. Another Qualcomm. Corporation US, will also come for the iPhone hardware.