Smartphones have become an indispensable part of our lives. They have much craze among the people due to stunning look, incredible features, and design. Usually, people use the smartphones to store an immense quantity of personal information, from our private conversations to our photos and much more. Once upon a time, smartphones are for luxury. But now, they became a necessity for us. Keeping this fact in view, a company named Ringing Bells Pvt Ltd which was established in 2015 launched a smartphone Freedom 251 in February 2016. They made the smartphone available at Rs.251/-.Their main motto is that everyone should be able to afford the price of a smartphone. But later, the company ran into controversy as it was unable to deliver the smartphones.
The website of the company also crashed during two-day sale due to the huge response from prospective buyers. The company claimed that around 30,000 customers had booked the phone in the first batch despite the glitch. The company, however, withdrew the product and refunded the payments to customers following a close scrutiny by government agencies. The company had said about 30,000 people paid for booking the phone and over 7 crore people registered for it.
“We will start shipment of Freedom 251 from June 28 to customers who paid for it earlier on COD (cash-on-delivery) basis,” Managing Director Mohit Goel told Press Trust of India. He also said that Ringing Bells has a foolproof plan to support the price but did not disclose it.
Ringing Bells President Ashok Chaddha had explained earlier that the manufacturing cost of the phone was about Rs. 2,500, which had to be recovered through a series of measures like economies of scale, innovative marketing, reduction in duties and creating an e-commerce marketplace. He had said that the company would make phones in India that would lead to 13.8% savings on duties and further save on cost by selling it online.
“Two plants will be set up for Rs. 250 crores each with a capacity of 5 lakh phones. The money will come in the form of debt and equity (1.5:1),” Chaddha had said. However, industry players had expressed doubt over the claim.