Phone brands such as Lava Mobiles, Lenovo, etc. are to set to increase price of their handsets soon. Others may follow suit soon.
The increase in the price of mobile phones will be around 10 percent from July.
The increase in the price of the phone is due to the depreciation in the value of rupee against dollar.
Indian Cellular Association on Friday indicated that several phone makers will be forced to revise prices from July.
“Brands dependent on import will have to take price increase of about 10 per cent due to decline in value of rupee. Companies making mobile phone in India will be impacted to lesser extent but they will also have to increase price by 5 to 6 percent,” Indian Cellular Association’s (ICA) national president, Pankaj Mohindroo.
The rupee hit a life time low of 59.93 to a dollar in early trade on Friday before closing at 59.57, PTI reported.
Lava International co-founder and director SN Rai said: “We have no other option but to increase the price. In the next couple of days, we will be increasing the handset prices by around 10 percent.”
Though Nokia did not offer any comment, Samsung said that it has not made any change in the price of handsets yet and holding onto the price lines for the moment.
Multinational brand Lenovo said that it may raise its mobile handsets prices in the range of 5 to 8 percent. “We are looking at the price situation and we would have to raise the price in the coming weeks. The hike could be in the range of 5-8 percent,” Lenovo India MD Amar Babu said.
Most Indian brands like Micromax, Lava Mobiles and Karbonn sell imported handsets at relatively low price.
Micromax expressed disappointment on the continuous decline in value of rupee and said “we are monitoring the situation and are hopefully expectant of the trend to reverse, however if not, like the fuel prices, the device costs will also have to undergo price correction.”
Datawind, maker of cheapest tablet PC Aakash, said fall of the rupee will have direct impact on the price of tablets, PTI reported.
“We have seen a 30 percent loss in the Rupee’s value from 44 to almost 60 in the last 24 months. This gets reflected directly in price increases to the consumer, reducing affordability for the masses,” Datawind CEO Suneet Singh Tuli said.
Like Lenovo, international brands like BlackBerry, HTC, Lenovo, Panasonic also import handsets from their units abroad to sell in India but no inputs were received from these firms.
“We are watching the situation… we are yet to take a position on pricing,” HTC country head Faisal Siddiqui said.
Retailers also admitted that the price of IT and electronic goods, including mobile phone, will go up soon.
“Fall of rupee will have an adverse impact on the electronic goods and IT products market. We see a likely increase in prices by about 5 to 10 percent in the coming weeks and this will have a direct hit on the consumer’s pocket,” said House of Technology’s director Vipul Jain.
