Xiaomi/Oppo/Apple began to increase the retail price of smartphones in India

India is one of the most competitive markets for smartphone brands. Before the outbreak of new coronaviruses, India was also the only smartphone market in the world that was still growing.

In view of the huge appeal of the huge smartphone market, the Indian Ministry of Finance previously announced that it will increase the goods and services tax on smartphones from April 2020.

The original Indian goods and services tax rate was 12%. This adjustment in India directly raised the tax rate to 18%. In terms of increase, the tax rate adjustment reached 50%.

Mi fans, the GST on mobile phones has increased by 50% from 12% to 18%.

Considering a few other factors and keeping with the #Xiaomi policy of making <5% margin on our hardware products, we will be increasing the prices of our products.

New prices will be effective immediately. pic.twitter.com/S875IOfhT7

— Xiaomi India (@XiaomiIndia) March 31, 2020

Affected by this, such as Xiaomi, Oppo, Samsung, Vivo, and Apple all announced or plan to increase the retail price of mobile phones in India.

For smartphone manufacturers, they rely on the power of the global supply chain from production to assembly. For example, many components are manufactured in China, the United States, Japan, and South Korea.

When these manufacturers purchase smartphone components, they usually need to settle in local currency or US dollars, but the performance of the official Indian currency, the Rupee, is not very good.

The increase in the tax increase by 50% has made smartphone manufacturers unsatisfied. Eventually, these manufacturers chose to increase the retail price for sellers.

Affected by the coronavirus epidemic, the current shipments of all smartphone manufacturers are declining, and some manufacturers’ shipments have even plummeted, so the direct losses are very heavy.

At this time, India ’s tax increase is undoubtedly worse for manufacturers. After all, India is currently the largest smartphone market for many manufacturers.

However, it is useless to complain about India’s tax policy. After all, this is India’s official tax policy, and smartphone manufacturers do not seem to have a good solution other than raising the retail price of their products.

Of course, for Indian consumers to prepare for a new machine or buy a smartphone, they will pay more taxes, and coincide with the epidemic, it is estimated that the demand for machine purchases will also plummet.

Via: gsmarena