India is reportedly going to block cheap cellphones from China

 


The Indian government was rumored to be banning cheap cellphones from China. But the news was immediately denied and the Indian government said it had no such plans.

This news originated from a Bloomberg report which said that the Indian government would prohibit vendors from China from selling mobile phones at prices below 12,000 Rupees.


The reason behind the ban on cheap Chinese cellphones is to support local Indian mobile phone vendors such as Lava and Micromax to push their sales in the entry level category and increase their market share.


Currently, the cheap cellphone market in India is dominated by cellphones made by Chinese vendors such as Realme, Xiaomi and Transsion. According to Counterpoint data, a third of the volume of mobile phone sales in India in the second quarter of 2022 was sales of low-cost phones, of which 80% of sales were phones from Chinese brands.


Counterpoint data also shows that Xiaomi, Samsung, Vivo, Realme and Oppo were the top five mobile phone vendors in India in Q2 2022, with Samsung being the only non-Chinese vendor on the list.


Before Chinese mobile phones came to India, sales of Lava and Micromax phones accounted for almost 50% of total mobile phone sales in India. But everything immediately changed after a vendor from China came to bring a cellphone with better specifications and a cheaper price.


After the news about the ban on cheap cellphones from China, the Indian government immediately opened its voice. The Indian government says it has no plans to ban Chinese cheap phones.


"No such proposal is being considered at the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology," said a source familiar with the issue, as quoted from Livemint, Monday (14/8/2022).


Relations between India and China have remained strained since clashes between Indian and Chinese troops on the Himalayan border two years ago. In response to the incident, the Indian government blocked hundreds of popular Chinese applications such as TikTok, PUBG Mobile, and others.


Mobile phone vendors from China are also of concern. In recent months, the Indian government has scuttled three mobile phone vendors from China for allegedly avoiding paying taxes.

Previous Post Next Post

Contact Form