Pakistan’s mobile phone industry has undergone a dramatic structural shift, as locally assembled and manufactured devices surged to 22.78 million units in the first nine months of 2025 while commercial imports fell sharply to just 1.5 million units, Gwadar Pro reported on Thursday quoting the latest data from the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority. The figures highlight the sustained impact of the Mobile Device Manufacturing Policy and the increasingly leading role of Chinese companies in the country’s mobile production landscape.

The change from previous years is striking. In 2016 Pakistan imported more than 21 million handsets commercially, while local manufacturing stood at only 0.29 million units. Imports remained high through 2020 when they peaked at 24.51 million units, but a combination of local assembly incentives, tariff adjustments, and growing Chinese industrial participation gradually reversed the trend. By 2022 commercial imports had dropped to 1.53 million units while domestic production rose to nearly 22 million.

The shift accelerated in 2024 as local manufacturing climbed to 31.38 million units and imports declined to 1.71 million, marking a near-complete turnaround from the pre-policy environment. The 2025 results for January to September show this transformation holding steady. Imports remain minimal at 1.5 million units and local assembly continues to expand at scale. The progress is attributed mainly to the manufacturing ecosystems established by leading Chinese smartphone companies that have invested heavily in Pakistan’s assembly infrastructure, supply chains, and workforce development.

PTA’s top ten manufacturing chart for 2025 underscores the depth of Chinese involvement. Infinix leads production with 2.77 million units, followed by VGO TEL at 2.57 million and itel with 2.06 million devices. Vivo recorded 1.74 million units, TECNO reached 1.45 million, and Xiaomi’s Redmi brand produced 1.28 million handsets. Realme manufactured and assembled 0.81 million mobile sets. Brans such as QMobile, which depend heavily on Chinese original device manufacturers, also remain in the top tier, further strengthening China’s overall footprint in Pakistan’s mobile manufacturing sector.

Economist Subham Ahmad Ansari notes that the dominance of Chinese tech firms reflects both Pakistan’s demand for competitively priced smartphones and China’s long-term industrial integration with Pakistan under broader economic cooperation frameworks. With almost half of all handsets produced in 2025 classified as smartphones, 11.92 million units out of the total 22.78 million, the role of Chinese manufacturers is becoming even more central to Pakistan’s digital transformation.

Credit: Independent News Pakistan (INP) — Pak-China