Pakistan has officially done the first 4G smartphone export as the first batch of 1,500 locally manufactured handsets have been sent to the United Arab Emirate (UAE) by Airlink Communication.
The announcement about Pakistan first 4G smartphone export was made by the Advisor to Prime Minister on Commerce, Razak Dawood, saying:
“It is heartening to see that within a short period of time, Pakistan has become a 4G Smartphone exporter. I would like to congratulate Airlink Communications in playing an integral role in this process and exporting their first batch of 1,500 locally manufactured smartphones to UAE. It is a small beginning for the company, however, for Pakistan’s mobile phone industry, it is a significant milestone.”
As per official details:
Pakistan’s mobile market size is around 45 million units with around 32 million units’ imports. While in terms of value, the market size of mobile sets in Pakistan is around US$2.5 billion, based on import data by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS).
Mobile manufacturing in Pakistan began after the incumbent government approved the Mobile Device Manufacturing Policy last year. The aim of the policy was to ensure localization and indigenization of the parts of the mobile phones and to attract investment in the manufacturing of mobile devices in Pakistan. The policy offers several tax incentives for the manufacturing of mobile devices with the focus of attracting companies to set up their plants in Pakistan. As a result of this policy, one of the world’s largest smartphone company, Samsung, is also setting up its manufacturing plant in the country in partnership with Lucky Cement Limited.
