Rising costs revive repair economy

In Pakistan, rising living costs are giving an old habit a new economic meaning: repair it rather than replace it. Consumers are turning to technicians to keep mobile phones, laptops, air-conditioners, refrigerators, washing machines and other appliances working for longer.

For thousands of technicians, workshop owners and spare-parts dealers, the logic is straightforward. When buying a new product becomes expensive, repairing the old one can make better economic sense. What once looked like a collection of small repair shops is increasingly overlapping with refurbishment, used-device trading, component recovery and e-waste recycling.

A 2026 study by 6Wresearch on Pakistan's e-waste recycling market outlines this wider chain. Its publicly available framework includes component refurbishment, precious-metal recovery, plastics separation and battery processing. It covers waste from IT and telecom equipment, consumer devices, household appliances and electric-vehicle components.

The report places refurbishment between conventional repair and recycling. An ageing device may move through several stages rather than going directly from a consumer's home to a scrap dealer. It can be repaired, have parts replaced, be refurbished and resold, and eventually yield materials for recovery.

A damaged phone may receive a new screen and return to its owner. A trader may instead buy the handset, replace components and sell it as refurbished. Parts removed from one phone can serve another, while devices that cannot be repaired profitably may still retain value for dismantling. The same applies to computers and appliances. Technicians can recover usable parts from a laptop with a faulty motherboard, a refrigerator with a damaged compressor or an air-conditioner needing an expensive component.

“Users come to us with all kinds of problems, from slow charging and blank screens to storage issues, broken screens, faulty buttons and damaged charging ports,” said Furqan Alvi, a mobile repair shop operator who also sells new devices. For consumers, a repair bill can be a fraction of the cost of a new appliance when the fault involves a replaceable component.

The market is also adapting to changing consumer habits. Independent technicians increasingly work from small workshops, homes and social-media pages. They use messaging platforms to receive complaints, send estimates and arrange doorstep services, with many home-based technicians operating across Karachi.

“

Users come to us with all kinds of problems, from slow charging and blank screens to storage issues, broken screens, faulty buttons and damaged charging ports.