Mobile phone imports witnessed a phenomenal growth of 14.25 percent in the first seven months (July-January) of 2017-18, reaching $456.263 million compared to $399.351 million during the same period of 2016-17 (July-January).
Mobile phone imports in January 2018 ($79.762 million) increased by 13.66 percent compared to $70.174 million in imports in January 2017. It’s 9.19 percent higher compared to December 2017 ($73.047 million), revealed the latest data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS).
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Overall, telecom imports saw an increase of over 12.24 percent during July-January 2017-2018 compared to the same period last year.
Total imports were recorded at $876.288 million during this period, compared to $780.760 million in July-January 2016-17.
Telecom imports remained at $133.366 million in January 2018 and registered a 25.61 percent decline, as compared to $179.287 million during December 2017.
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Other telecom apparatus imports also witnessed growth of over 10.12 percent in July-January 2017-18 as they stood at $420.025 million, against $381.409 million during the same period last year.
When compared to the December 2017, other telecom apparatus imports registered a massive decline of 49.54 percent in January 2018 as it was $53.604 million compared to $106.420 million in December 2017.
It would have been nice if you had included a breakdown of the types of phones imported. The reason is that we should be seeing a migration towards smart phones and that could be one reason for the higher import numbers. Smart phones tend to cost more than feature phones. Another reason is the overvalued rupee.