ISLAMABAD: While local mobile manufacturing declined in November, the companies were optimistic about a robust new year.

According to the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority data, local mobile production fell 8 per cent year-on-year to 2.31 million units and 35pc month-onmonth in November. The local firms produced 3.53m units in October, marking the highest production after seven months.

At the same time, the total sales of locally manufactured mobile sets reached 28.43mn units in the eleven months of the calendar year 2024, with an increase of 57pc against the same period last year.

The data showed out of the 28.43m manufactured in eleven months, 60pc or 17.01m units were smartphones, while the remaining 11.42m were 2G feature phones.

Sunny Kumar of Topline Research said that if the local manufacturing was compared to the 11 months of 2022, the growth in 2024 was also due to economic recovery, increasing share of locally assembled mobile phones amid higher taxes on imported phones, and the growing population. `We expect that with the current monthly run rate, total mobile phone demand will reach 32.9m units in 2024, compared to 22.9m units sold in 2023, a 44pc rise over last year,` he said.

He added that the top 10 localbrands during JanuaryNovember were, Infinix (3.65m units), followed by Itel (3.34m units), VGO Tel (3.07m units), Vivo (2.57m units), Tecno (2.53m units), Xiaomi (2.19m units), Realme (1.61m units), G`Five (1.41m units), Samsung (1.26m units), and Nokia (1.20m units).

New phone launched Given the high sales season, local companies are introducing mobile sets, and Realme launched its fresh model, the C75 water-resistance smartphone, on Monday. The company has invested over Rs50 billion to set up a plant for assembling smartphones. The company said its average monthly sales reached 150,000 units compared to 70,000 units last year.