Two ways to measure who’s winning — and they tell different stories

Pakistan sells roughly 30 million mobile phones a year, making it one of the largest handset markets in South Asia — and one of the least reported on in plain language. In FY 2024–25, total sales dropped 12%, with 30 million units sold compared to 34 million the previous year. But underneath that headline decline, the competitive picture is far more interesting.

The shipment story: Transsion has quietly won

A brand most Pakistanis couldn’t name five years ago now controls nearly half the smartphones being sold in the country. Transsion Group — the Chinese company behind Infinix and Tecno — built its entire strategy around emerging markets by obsessing over what budget buyers actually want: long battery life, good low-light cameras, durable builds, and prices that don’t sting.

Infinix and Tecno have executed this strategy in Pakistan almost perfectly. Their phones dominate Hall Road in Lahore, Saddar in Karachi, and small city shops across Multan and Faisalabad. They’ve built deep retailer relationships in a market where 95% of smartphone sales come from independent shopkeepers — no carrier subsidies, no telecom-driven EMI schemes. [2]

Globally, IDC data confirms Transsion ranked first in smartphone shipments in Pakistan, Bangladesh, the Philippines and across Africa in the first three quarters of 2024 — a consistent pattern that continued into 2025. [9]

A quiet industrial revolution: 94% made locally

One of the most underreported stories in Pakistani tech is the manufacturing transformation. A decade ago Pakistan imported most of its phones. Today it assembles almost all of them domestically. The 94% local assembly figure for 2025 compares to a nine-year average of just 52% — a structural shift, not a short-term blip. [3]

Key assembly partners include Airlink Communication and Lucky Cement, which assemble phones for Xiaomi, Tecno, and others under PTA-approved frameworks. Xiaomi’s Pakistan head confirmed that all Redmi Note series phones priced between $100 and $300 are now locally assembled, with only flagship-tier Xiaomi devices still imported as complete units. [2]

Why Samsung still leads usage despite losing new sales

Samsung has been selling phones in Pakistan for over 15 years. Its older models stay in use for four, five, even six years — especially in middle-income households where a Galaxy A-series bought in 2020 remains the family’s primary device. Infinix’s rise in shipments is real, but it hasn’t yet displaced Samsung’s enormous installed base. Give it three to four more years of Transsion dominance in new sales and the usage picture will shift decisively.

Apple’s 8.8% active usage share is also notable — higher than you’d expect given iPhone pricing in a market where average household income is under Rs.100,000 a month. iPhones in Pakistan are mostly second-hand grey market imports, bought after two or three years of global depreciation. They are status symbols traded actively in Karachi and Lahore’s secondhand markets.