Pakistan's mobile phone imports surged by 26.55% to USD1.889 billion in fiscal year 2025-26, reversing the sharp decline recorded a year earlier even as local plants assembled 11.17 million handsets during the first five months of 2026. Official data showed the mobile import bill increased from USD1.492 billion in FY2024-25. Measured in Pakistani currency, purchases climbed by 27.24% to Rs530.492 billion from Rs416.937 billion a year earlier.

The increase marks a reversal from the previous fiscal year, when mobile phone imports had contracted sharply. Pakistan imported handsets worth USD1.494 billion in FY2024-25, a decline of 21.31% from USD1.898 billion in FY2023-24. In rupee terms, the FY2024-25 import bill stood at Rs417.351 billion, down 22.09% from Rs535.690 billion in FY2023-24. The latest monthly figures suggest that imported handset demand remained firm at the end of FY2025-26. Mobile phone imports reached USD141.556 million in June 2026, an increase of 11.88% from USD126.527 million in May. Compared with the same month a year earlier, the rise was more modest. Imports increased by 2.62% from USD137.941 million in June 2025. The expansion was not confined to mobile handsets. Pakistan's overall telecom imports reached USD2.690 billion during FY2025-26, representing growth of 27.97% from USD2.102 billion in the preceding fiscal year.

The rising import bill came alongside substantial domestic handset assembly. Local manufacturing and assembly plants produced 11.17 million mobile handsets during the first five months of calendar year 2026, while 1.91 million devices were imported commercially over the same period.

Of the 11.17 million locally manufactured or assembled handsets, 4.92 million were smartphones and 6.25 million were 2G phones. The figures indicate that basic handsets still accounted for more than half of local production during the five-month period. The composition of devices operating on Pakistan's network, however, is markedly different. According to Pakistan Telecommunication Authority data, smartphones account for 72.3% of mobile devices on the network, while 2G handsets make up 27.7%. Domestic assembly had also reached a considerably larger scale during calendar year 2025.

Local plants manufactured or assembled 30.21 million mobile handsets between January and December 2025, compared with 2.37 million devices imported commercially. The figures for 5G-enabled handset assembly show a different pattern. Pakistan assembled 101,005 5G-capable mobile phones during May 2026, compared with 553,079 during 2025, according to official data.

Taken together, the figures present a market in which large-scale local assembly and rising imports are occurring simultaneously. Domestic plants produced tens of millions of devices in 2025 and another 11.17 million during the first five months of 2026. Yet the foreign-exchange cost of imported phones still climbed by more than a quarter during FY2025-26.

The increase was also reflected across the wider telecommunications category, where imports advanced by nearly 28% to USD2.690 billion. For mobile phones alone, Pakistan spent almost USD400 million more in FY2025-26 than in the preceding fiscal year, based on the reported figures. The contrast with FY2024-25 is particularly pronounced. After falling by more than 21% that year, the handset import bill rebounded by 26.55% in FY2025-26 to USD1.889 billion, bringing it close to the USD1.898 billion recorded in FY2023-24. June reinforced that recovery, with purchases rising both month on month and year on year. The result is a sizeable rebound in Pakistan's mobile phone import bill despite an extensive domestic assembly industry, while smartphones now account for nearly three-quarters of devices operating on the country's mobile network.