Ringing Bells launched the Freedom 251 world’s cheapest smartphone priced at Rs 251 which was available for booking today . Company has stop taking orders due to overloaded servers. now According to NDTV Only 30000 units of Freedom 251 has been sold to customers
Ringing Bells President Ashok Chadha stated that the number of hits was as much as 63 lakh per second, which was more than the payment processor or server could handle. Despite this incredible number of visitors, Goel said only that over 30,000 units have been sold, less than what many other brands have been claiming to sell ‘within seconds’ despite much higher price tags.
Sources also said they are selling Freedom 251 at a loss to reach the Rs. 251 price point, but they hope to change that in the future. Chadha says that by not importing the phone, Ringing Bells is saving 13.5 percent per handset, and economies of scale will also reduce the per-unit cost of making the handsets. “We also have some innovative marketing concepts in place, because once we accomplish the scale we are looking at we become a route to market for people,” Chadha said, “and we already have NDAs with a lot of people for this. So all this will enable the phone’s price of Rs. 251.”
While the company thinks us to buy the planning, here’s the catch – none of these exist currently. So all these things are in right now, thus triggering speculations that either the company is selling the phone for a big loss or will just delay the shipments before it structures everything.
Ashok Chadha of Ringing Bells admits the real cost of the phone is Rs 2,500. Considering components including the processor, display, flash memory, camera among others have to be imported even if the device is manufactured in India, the calculation provided by the company doesn’t add up.
First set of reviewers who have got the phone, have been posting on how it is actually an Adcom Ikon 4, incidentally priced at Rs 4,100 on Flipkart and other ecommerce sites. The phone’s design and specifications are idential to the Adcom Ikon 4. And so are internals. Yet, the company insists that the handset it distributed is just an early prototype, and that the internal components are unique. “Only the body and touch panel come from Adcom,” company is selling phones without even a final prototype. People don’t know what the phone they are spending money for will even look like, or where the parts will be sourced from, or anything else of importance really.
Indian Cellular Association president Pankaj Mohindroo said “this pricing is not possible under any circumstances, even if the components are made in India.” He said the bill of material of a product like this is around $40. While the association expects there to be a “marginal effect on market sentiment” as “consumers may hold back purchases”, “this will have no impact on a profound campaign like Make in India”.
In fact, the Freedom 251 carries a Tricolour sticker on the rear panel to conceal the Adcom branding. “A 3G device with the specs offered has a base manufacturing cost almost 8X higher than what’s being offered. So, we’re interested in learning of how they’ve achieved this, including all licensing fees, etc. We hope this is not a small marketing promotion, and is broadly available to the 100 crore Indians that need such affordable technology,” says Sunit Singh Tuli, whose Datawind was the original affordable smart devices company of India having shocked the world by offering a $35 Aakash tablet for the Indian government.
50 Lakh smartphone at Rs 251 will be guaranteed to be delivered by June 30
buy link www.freedom251.com
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