Pakistan currently has two very different stories about mobile phones. One story comes from high-level tax meetings. In these briefings, officials argue that phone taxes are not a big deal for the average person. The FBR Chairman has famously suggested that less than 5% of the population is actually affected by high prices and taxes. The logic is simple: most people buy cheap, locally made phones, and only a tiny, rich minority buys expensive imports. But then there is the second story. This one comes from the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA). Their latest annual report shows that they blocked nearly 100 million mobile devices in just one year. When you put these two stories together, they don't match. In fact, they describe two different countries. If only 5% of people are struggling with phone prices, why is the regulator forced to block a number of devices that equals nearly half the population?
The Narrow Definition of "Affected"
The FBR’s "5% claim" is built on a very specific way of looking at the world. It only counts people who walk into a high-end store to buy a brand-new, legally imported flagship phone. By that logic, yes, the number of people paying full tax on a new iPhone is small.
But that is not the whole market. This narrow view ignores everyone else who is trying to survive in a broken system. It ignores the students, the freelancers, and the small business owners who need good technology but find the legal path too expensive.
The Real Numbers Behind the Blocks
PTA’s data gives us a much more honest look at what is happening on the ground. Out of the roughly 100 million devices blocked, the breakdown is eye-opening.
First, there are 72 million fake or replica devices. This is a massive number. It shows that counterfeit phones are not just a small side problem. They are a mainstream reality. People buy these because they want the look and feel of a good phone but cannot afford the real thing due to the price gap created by taxes.
Second, there are 27 million devices with cloned or duplicated IMEIs. This is what many people call "patching." When a person cannot afford to register their phone or pay the high PTA tax, they often turn to the grey market to "patch" the device. They basically steal the identity of a cheap, approved phone and put it on an expensive, non-approved one.
This isn't just about crime. It is a market reaction. When the cost of being legal is too high, millions of people choose to be invisible.
The Math of the Reality Gap
We can look at this using a simple formula for percentages:
Percentage=TotalPart×100
If we take the 99 million blocked devices and compare them to Pakistan’s estimated population of 240 million, the result is startling.
240,000,00099,000,000×100=41.25%
Even if we admit that "devices" are not the same as "people" because some individuals own multiple phones, the scale is still too big to ignore. You cannot have 41% of your device ecosystem hitting a wall and still claim that only 5% of your people are affected. The signal is loud and clear: the system is pushing a huge portion of the population into workarounds.
Living in the "Workaround" Economy
The government’s claim fails because it doesn't account for how Pakistanis actually use technology today. Many people now carry two phones. They have one cheap, PTA-approved "brick" phone for calls and a second, nicer, non-PTA phone for apps and photos. They use a hotspot to connect the two.
Other people use patched phones that show the identity of a locally made handset. This makes them look like part of the "unaffected" majority in the FBR's data, but in reality, they are struggling with the system every day. These people are very much "affected," even if they aren't showng up in the tax revenue charts.
The Cost to the Future
This gap between the official story and the reality on the street is hurting Pakistan in three major ways.
First, it weakens the formal economy. Honest shopkeepers who pay their taxes cannot compete with the flood of replicas and patched devices. This rewards the grey market and punishes the people trying to do things the right way.
Second, it slows down technology. When phones are too expensive, people don't upgrade. They stick with old, slow, and insecure devices. This makes it harder for the country to move toward a truly digital economy where everyone has a fast smartphone for banking and work.
Third, it scares away investors. Companies that build apps or provide mobile services want a stable market. They want to know that their users have genuine devices that won't be blocked tomorrow morning. A market where 100 million devices are being shut down feels risky and unpredictable.
A System-Level Problem
The FBR's 5% figure is a convenient political tool. It makes the current tax policy look like it only hits the rich. But the PTA's report tells us the truth. When you tax a essential tool too heavily, you don't just collect more money. You create a shadow economy.
The millions of replicas and cloned IMEIs are proof that the current system is not working for the average person. Pakistan does not have a "5% problem" with phone taxes. It has a system-level crisis where the legal path has become so expensive that the majority of the market is forced to find a backdoor. Until the government acknowledges this reality, the gap between the two stories will only continue to grow.