Local handset makers cheer as Government bans Chinese handsets
The government has imposed ban on the illegal Chinese mobile sets, which has helped the local mobile makers including, Airfone, Karbonn, Fly and lava to increase the sales of their mobile sets.
Government has imposed ban on the cheap Chinese mobile sets, without IMEI number from December 1. According to the industry estimates, there has been a 20% increase in the sales of the Indian brands due to the ban as Chinese sets have captured a substantial part of the market.
The Director of Airfone, Mr. Vishal Chitkara informed that the company's brand is currently available in 12 cities and is expanding to cover more number of cities over the next few months to exploit on the opportunity. He further said, "The Chinese handsets accounted for as much as 20-30% of the Indian sales last year and we are hoping to attract that market to our brand."
Now the situation is that the customers using the Chinese handsets are looking for a number of features at very low rates as the Chinese sets has been providing till now. The majority of Indian companies are making handsets in the price range of Rs 1,400 to Rs 5,000 with all desired features such as FM radio, MP3, dual-SIM card, Bluetooth, expandable memory and camera.
Moreover a software, 'Spiderman Box' has defeated the government's efforts to stop calls on Chinese unbranded cell phones, which do not carry genuine International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) numbers. In order to make easy money, unscrupulous cell phone shop owners have started using a software known as Spiderman Box that helps them to clone genuine IMEI numbers from registered cell phones into Chinese sets by just Rs 100.
But this could cause serious security threat as terrorists or underworld operatives may use a Chinese cell phone which has a cloned IMEI number for nefarious activities and an innocent person whose IMEI number matches with that of the terrorist could be arrested.
