Mobile phone imports witnessed a 6.06% growth in the current fiscal year (July-August) 2018-19. Imports ended up costing $136.917 million to the national exchequer as compared to $129.093 million during the same period last year.
Mobile phone imports in August 2018, which stood at $67.67 million, registered a 11 percent growth as compared to $60.8257 million imports in August 2017. Last month’s figure was lower by 2.27 percent when compared to $69.24 million in July 2018. These figures were revealed in the latest data released by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS).
Overall telecom imports saw a decline of 6.49 percent during July-August 2018 when compared to the same period of last year. Total imports were recorded at $215.73 million during this period when compared to $230.692 million in July-August 2017, registering a 7.06 percent growth in August 2018. This figure stood at $111.544 million in August as compared to $104.187 million during July 2018.
Other telecom apparatus imports witnessed a phenomenal decline of over 22 percent in July-August 2018 as it stood at $78.81 million against $101.599 million during the same period of last year. When compared to July 2018, other telecom apparatus imports registered 25.56 percent growth as it was $34.94 million compared to $43.87 million in August 2018.