Capturing the market-Chinese cell phones

Diksha Grover

DEHRADUN, October13, 2008

Chakrata Road and Chinese cell phones are relative to each other in Dehradun. With almost a multitude of telecomm shops one after the other in this busy area, the Chinese mobiles are the most commonly sold items in this market.

According to Manish, a salesman at Hot-Spot, “ Though we sell only those mobiles with warranty, there are almost 2 buyers for such phones everyday.” While most of these shops sell mobile phones without any warranty, the customers are ready to take the chance on such inexpensive phones.

With a mere cost starting from Rs 1300 to Rs.7000; one can hold a high definition camera on one’s palm. Apart from camera, these phones have the features of mp3, FM and radio, high storage capacity, MMS facility and also a large variety of multimedia.

Vikas Verma, the proud owner of Jai Durga Telecom, says, “ Because of the growing need to possess cell phones, people are ready to buy cell phones that are cheap and have better facilities. Though I also sell branded phones, there are more buyers for Chinese handsets.”

The problem such phones have is more-or-less because of the software. Rajender Verma, from Virmani Communication says, “ The problem that customers face with such phones is that of the unreliable quality of the software. If the phone slips down too many times, the phone becomes almost worthless. There are other problems like that of its unavailable batteries and it’s low quality chargers.”

Yet, this is not a problem for those who also repair these phones. For them, parts of many branded phones that are sold in the black market also have assembled parts. They believe that the phones that are sold in the ‘grey market’ are even worse. Sanjeev Sharma, who repairs phones at Tip-Top cellular, are not all Chinese ones.

Sanjeev belives, that as far as the two sim card Chinese phones are concerned, they do not create any problems. For after one to one and a half months, the second sim, automatically stops working. He also informs--- that a 4 sim Chinese model would be out in the market soon. However, as far as the security is in question, these phones would continue to pose a threat, be it in any form.

While many shop owners refused to talk about possessing the Chinese phones that they rapidly sell, Arora traders was one such shop that refused to be questioned on their Chinese products.

Published in Hindustan Times, Dehradun