The Union Budget 2013 has been a mixed bag. Its been good for some industries and not so good for some. The mobile industry belongs to the latter group. The country is witnessing an unprecedented increase in the number of smartphone users but the Budget 2013 is not at all conducive to this growth. Mr.P.Chidambram, the country’s finance minister has announced that the mobiles costing more than Rs.2,000 will become costlier from 1-6 percent.
The Finance Minister, at the time of presenting the Budget, stated, “About 70 per cent of imported mobile phones and about 60 percent of domestically manufactured mobile phones are priced at Rs 2,000 or below. I do not propose to change that (excise duty) in the case of low priced mobile phones. However, on mobile phones priced at more than Rs 2,000, I propose to raise the duty to six percent.” And mobiles costing north of this, are pretty much all the smartphones on offer.
