Mobile phones - not just manufacture, also export.

Byline: Parvez Iftikhar

ISLAMABAD -- Most recently, Bangladesh has started exporting locally assembled mobile phones to USA, thus joining Vietnam, India and Indonesia.

Mobile phone exports out of Vietnam have surged to over $60 billion. India's mobile phone exports - $3 billion in 2019 - are targeted at $110 billion by 2025, creating thousands of jobs.

The Economic Times of India says, 'Modi's vow to create tens of millions of new jobs has stuttered on many fronts, but domestic smartphone production has emerged as a bright spot.' One reason that new countries in the region are becoming mobile phone exporters is the trend of moving manufacturing facilities out of China. This is partly due to rising labour costs in China and partly due to President Donald Trump's escalation of tariffs on goods exported out of China.

Several factors going for us

Pakistan's manpower cost is reportedly one-third of the Chinese and we are the seventh largest market of mobile phones.

In 2019, over 28.2 million mobile phones were imported legally into Pakistan - thanks to the full introduction of Device Identification, Registration and Blocking System (DIRBS) by Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) in early 2019, which helped to control smuggling. In addition, around 12 million sets were reportedly assembled in the country.

The demand for high-quality affordable internet-enabled devices is surging as internet is getting integrated into the lives of young tech-savvy individuals. Nearly 40% of the population has yet to cross the age of 15 and start looking for their own smartphones. Seventy-six million mobile broadband users in Pakistan today can easily double to 150 million by 2025.

This means domestic demand for at least over 75 million new smartphones alone. Add to this the low-cost feature phones. On top of all that come the replacement phones.

According to Counterpoint Research, on an average in this region, a mobile phone is replaced every 21 months. As for the existing local manufacturing facilities, so far PTA has given nearly 30 licences for the assembly/manufacture of mobile phones. Over a dozen are operational.

How do we export?

One common feature among the countries exporting mobile phones is that state policies provide full support to the manufacturers-cum-exporters. Therefore, the first thing needed is strong government support with an aggressive mobile phones manufacturing and export policy.

Second, it is a no-brainer that there must be...