Mobile phone assembly in Pakistan reached 18.66 million handsets in the first eight months of 2026. Only 2.74 million phones came in through commercial imports over the same period, according to official data.

The numbers confirm that local plants now supply most of the market. They also show a weak spot. Output of 5G-enabled handsets fell sharply in August.

Local plants still supply most of the market

Local manufacturing and assembling plants turned out 18.66 million handsets between January and August 2026. That is about 87 percent of all handsets counted in the two categories, assembled and commercially imported.

For all of 2025, local plants produced 30.21 million handsets, against 2.37 million imported commercially. Local plants supplied about 93 percent of the total that year.

The monthly pace tells a more careful story. Local plants averaged about 2.33 million handsets a month in 2026, against about 2.52 million in 2025. That is a drop of roughly 7 percent.

Commercial imports moved the other way. They averaged about 340,000 a month this year, up from about 200,000 in 2025, an increase of roughly 70 percent. The local share is still high, but it is slipping.

What Pakistan is actually assembling

The 18.66 million handsets include about 8 million smartphones and about 11 million 2G phones, according to the official data. Feature phones, in other words, make up a large part of local output.

That fits what is on the network. PTA data shows 71 percent of mobile devices in use are smartphones and 29 percent are 2G handsets.

A 2G phone handles calls and text messages. It has no real mobile internet, so it keeps millions of users outside the digital economy. For a country pushing digital payments and online services, that gap matters.

5G output falls sharply

Pakistan assembled 134,501 5G-enabled handsets in August 2026. In August 2025 the figure was 553,079.

That is a decline of about 76 percent in a single year. The data does not say why. Weaker consumer demand, pricing, stock levels, and the timing of 5G services could all play a part.

The figure also looks small next to the wider market. The 8 million smartphones assembled over eight months work out to about 1 million a month. August 5G output was roughly one-eighth of that, though the comparison is rough because it sets one month against an average.

Import bill shrinks

Official trade data points the same way on spending. Pakistan’s mobile phone imports fell 8.85 percent in July-August of the current fiscal year, to $274.129 million from $300.741 million, according to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS).

In rupee terms, imports dropped 10.53 percent to Rs76.267 billion, from Rs85.245 billion a year earlier.

August alone was weaker. Imports fell 13.82 percent year on year to $133.695 million, from $155.129 million in August 2025. They also slipped 4.80 percent from July’s $140.434 million.

Telecom equipment tells a different story

Demand for network equipment held up better. Telecom equipment imports rose 8.95 percent to $432.044 million in July-August 2026, from $395.536 million a year earlier. In rupee terms they rose 6.95 percent to Rs120.211 billion.

The increase comes amid continued investment in network expansion and preparations for next-generation mobile services.

August was softer. Equipment imports fell 3.42 percent year on year to $197.269 million and 15.98 percent from July’s $234.775 million. Orders for network gear tend to arrive in batches, so one slow month does not settle the trend.

An unexplained gap in the numbers

Commercial handset imports are rising in unit terms, yet the import bill for mobile phones is shrinking. The two datasets come from different agencies and measure different things, so they do not have to match.

Still, the gap deserves attention. It could point to cheaper devices making up more of the imports, but the published figures do not establish that. The mix of imported handsets by price band would answer the question.

What it means for buyers and the industry

Pakistan has built real assembly capacity, and local plants keep foreign exchange spending down. But assembly is not the same as deep manufacturing, and the product mix matters as much as the count.

If 5G output stays weak while networks prepare for faster services, buyers may face a shortage of affordable, locally built 5G phones. Imports could then fill the gap, which would undo some of the savings on the import bill.

The next few months of PTA and PBS data will show whether August was a one-off dip or the start of a pattern. Watching 5G assembly numbers closely will tell more about the market’s direction than the headline total will.