News Rs.251 Smartphone launched
- Thread starter Technoglitch
- Start date
Akash Modi
EntMnt Contributor
Yes not paying option is available 
scorpionking76
EntMnt Knight
Even the company officials would have subscribed for more than 100 orders and resell it
IndianMascot
Core Member
Bhai, Murli Manohar Joshi has launched this Phone and you are calling it a scam.
Technoglitch
Core Member
he skipped the launch event.
Technoglitch
Core Member
The reality of the situation could be a little different, as we have reported - there are some doubts about the authenticity of Ringing Bells Freedom 251; whether or not this phone has even been made by the company is in doubt. What's more, even if it really is making its own phones, questions about licenses (an area where that other Indian success story, Micromax, also fell short) and BIS safety certification remain.
At the official Freedom 251 launch event on Wednesday night, attended by MP Murli Manohar Joshi, little was done by the Ringing Bells team to dispel these doubts.
As of now, the phone is being sold through its website - which likely won't be accessible to most of the people who would be the target audience for this kind of device - with a delivery scheduled for June. Further plans for offline sales were not forthcoming. However, when we pointed this out, Ashok Chadha, the President of Ringing Bell, countered by asking: "Have you been to Azamgarh? It is a semi-urban area and I can tell you that the Internet has reached there."
"The bill of materials [cost of the parts] for a phone like this is around Rs. 2,000 - by making in India we take away around Rs. 400 from that; by selling online we cut overheads and save another Rs. 400," explained Chadha. "And as the numbers go up, we're not talking lakhs but much more, we save another Rs. 400 from economies of scale. And then, our platform becomes big, and attractive to others, so we can then highlight products that are worth buying for our customers, and this is another source of income. We will pass all of this on to the customers, we want to make only a small profit per unit."
This was a point Chadha repeated more than once, but although the points about making in India and economies of scale from increased manufacturing make sense, assuming a Rs. 400-500 saving through online sales seems a bit odd - while that is a saving on the total costs involved in selling phones, it doesn't cut into the bill of materials, which is the cost of the components of the phone, and won't be affected whether the phone is sold online or offline.
And of course, without the BIS certification, the Freedom 251 can't be sold in India - this is a slow and expensive process, and could completely disrupt the company's plans, on cost and time both.
A group of IDC analysts we met at the launch told us that they had not found any details about the phone either. It does not appear to have gotten any licenses or certification, and there are no documents to show imports either, as far as they have been able to discover. "It looks like they're taking orders now, and then they will go to China to buy the phones," one hazarded privately.
As of now, it doesn't appear to be possible to buy the phone - which will actually cost you Rs. 291, because of a Rs. 40 shipping charge, from the Freedom 251 website - several users have been reporting that the site keeps crashing. In our own experience, the site worked but the buy button did not.
Freedom 251 Should Be Ringing Some Alarm Bells | NDTV Gadgets360.com
At the official Freedom 251 launch event on Wednesday night, attended by MP Murli Manohar Joshi, little was done by the Ringing Bells team to dispel these doubts.
As of now, the phone is being sold through its website - which likely won't be accessible to most of the people who would be the target audience for this kind of device - with a delivery scheduled for June. Further plans for offline sales were not forthcoming. However, when we pointed this out, Ashok Chadha, the President of Ringing Bell, countered by asking: "Have you been to Azamgarh? It is a semi-urban area and I can tell you that the Internet has reached there."
"The bill of materials [cost of the parts] for a phone like this is around Rs. 2,000 - by making in India we take away around Rs. 400 from that; by selling online we cut overheads and save another Rs. 400," explained Chadha. "And as the numbers go up, we're not talking lakhs but much more, we save another Rs. 400 from economies of scale. And then, our platform becomes big, and attractive to others, so we can then highlight products that are worth buying for our customers, and this is another source of income. We will pass all of this on to the customers, we want to make only a small profit per unit."
This was a point Chadha repeated more than once, but although the points about making in India and economies of scale from increased manufacturing make sense, assuming a Rs. 400-500 saving through online sales seems a bit odd - while that is a saving on the total costs involved in selling phones, it doesn't cut into the bill of materials, which is the cost of the components of the phone, and won't be affected whether the phone is sold online or offline.
And of course, without the BIS certification, the Freedom 251 can't be sold in India - this is a slow and expensive process, and could completely disrupt the company's plans, on cost and time both.
A group of IDC analysts we met at the launch told us that they had not found any details about the phone either. It does not appear to have gotten any licenses or certification, and there are no documents to show imports either, as far as they have been able to discover. "It looks like they're taking orders now, and then they will go to China to buy the phones," one hazarded privately.
As of now, it doesn't appear to be possible to buy the phone - which will actually cost you Rs. 291, because of a Rs. 40 shipping charge, from the Freedom 251 website - several users have been reporting that the site keeps crashing. In our own experience, the site worked but the buy button did not.
Freedom 251 Should Be Ringing Some Alarm Bells | NDTV Gadgets360.com
IndianMascot
Core Member
Even I have doubt that phones will be ever delivered. Same happened with Akash Tablet too.