Hisense has its finger on Pakistan’s pulse

Local assembling of Hisense smartphones is expected to reduce Pakistan import bill. (Photo courtesy: Hisense)

KARACHI: Switched on to the needs of users in the country, China’s Hisense said it will start assembling smartphones in Pakistan from January next year, after successfully manufacturing LED and laser TVs in the country, officials said on Saturday. 
“The process of installing a modern assembly line for the smartphones will be completed by the end of December this year at an estimated cost of approximately $3 to $4 million,” M. Tariq Zubairi, CFO of Tri-Angels Electronic, the manufacturer and distributors of Hisense in Pakistan, told Arab News.
With the completion of the assembly line, Tri-Angels Electronics will become the first entity to locally assemble smartphones in the country. “The locally-assembled smartphones will be available in markets across Pakistan from March 2019,” Zubairi said.
At a whopping cost of $848 million during the fiscal year 2017-2018, Pakistan imported 60 percent of its TV sets from China, followed by Korea.
“At present no one is assembling smartphones in Pakistan. Locally-assembled smartphones will benefit the country … consumers will be able to acquire the phones at lower prices and employment opportunities will open up for many others,” Muhammad Rizwan Irfan, President of Karachi Electronic Dealers’ Association, said.
According to several dealers, Pakistan imports approximately 1.4 million television sets every year and, with the introduction of 3G and 4G services, this number is steadily increasing, Irfan said.
Hisense, along with its Pakistani partner, has invested $1.5 million to set up the phone assembly plant and is also in the process of setting up another assembly line for bigger TV sets. Each assembly line has the capacity to produce around 500 units per day, reducing the dependency on imported TV sets by almost 75 percent.
The total Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the first two months remained $288 million, down by 40 percent. Pakistan’s power sector was the major recipient of foreign investment with up to $201 million, data released by the State Bank of Pakistan on Friday showed.
Since the inception of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor, China has emerged as the single largest foreign investor in Pakistan, with Chinese companies investing $170.6 million during the first two months (July-August) of the current fiscal year.
Headquartered in Qingdao, Hisense, founded in 1969, has a total workforce of 75,000 and earned an overseas sales revenue of $4.2 billion (CNY 111.1 billion) in 2017.