ISLAMABAD: The first eight months of the current fiscal year have witnessed mobile phone import of US $478.137 million in the country, showing 9.11 per cent decline as compared to same period last year, according to data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS). During the same period (July-Feb 2017-18), the mobile phone import was US $526.033 million.
As per details, mobile phone imports in February 2019, which stood at US $54.320 million, registered a 22.15 per cent decline as compared to US $69.779 million imports in February 2018. The last month’s figure was 9.12 per cent when compared to US $59.771 million in January 2019.
The overall telecom imports saw a decline of 9.91 per cent during July-February (2018-19) when compared to same period of the last year. Total imports were recorded at US $904.016 million during this period when compared to US $1.003 billion in July-February (2017-18).
This figure stood at US $120.565 million in February 2019 as compared to US $127.524 million during January 2019, according to PBS.
Other telecom apparatus imports witnessed a phenomenal decline of over 10.81 per cent in July-February (2018-19) as it stood at US $425.879 million against US $477.477 million during the same period of last year.
Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) expects increased revenue from import of mobile devices annually after Device Identification Registration and Blocking System (DIRBS) implementation.
