Locally assembled handsets to hit market next year
Local handset brands Walton and Symphony are taking preparation in earnest to assemble mobile phones domestically within the next couple of quarters in the light of the government's encouraging decisions on this front.
This fiscal year, the government slashed the customs duty for mobile parts for local assembling by a whopping 36 percentage points to 1 percent and doubled it on handset import to 10 percent.
The Bangladesh Telecommuni-cation Regulatory Commission too issued a directive on handset assembly locally.
The government said the scope to set up manufacturing or assembly plants will provide the local entrepreneurs with the opportunity to invest in technology that will also create jobs and open up export opportunities.
Walton has already applied to the telecom regulator for permission to assemble handsets a couple of months ago, while Symphony will do so shortly.
“We already have a full-fledged industrial park in Gazipur, so we can start assembling handsets within a couple of months of receiving the approval from the telecom regulator,” said Uday Hakim, a director of Walton Group.
The company, which has put in about Tk 100 crore on the venture, is initially planning to assemble about 50 lakh handsets a year.
Hakim though declined to give any timeframe by which Walton's mobile assembly line will roll as “everything depends on the approval of the BTRC”.
Symphony, the market leader in both the smartphone and feature phone segments, is hoping to sell locally manufactured devices within the first quarter of next year, said Ashraful Haque, director of marketing of Edison Group, its parent company.
“We have selected two separate lands close to Dhaka for the plant. Our preparation is almost done,” he said, adding that Symphony will start off with assembling about five lakh units a month.
The company has already selected a skilled workforce of 100 and has plans to export handsets. “Our plan is to put Bangladesh on the map as a device-exporting country,” Haque said.
Both the companies plan to assemble smartphones and feature phones, which would have the effect of substantially bringing down the price level of mobile phones in Bangladesh.
At present, there is a huge gap between imported sets and locally manufactured ones, and the domestic market is mostly catered by foreign-made handsets.
In 2016, about 3.1 crore handsets were imported, up 11 percent year-on-year, according to Bangladesh Mobile Phone Importers Association. The total value of the imports came to about Tk 8,000 crore.
Symphony brought in the highest number of handsets: about 1.16 crore units, 34 lakh of which are smartphones.
Walton imported about 20 lakh handsets last year. It is not just Walton and Symphony, some foreign companies like LG are also exploring the option of setting up manufacturing plants in Bangladesh.
The BTRC will allow two types of plants: category “A” and “B”.
The licence fee for a category “A” plant would be Tk 50 lakh and the annual fee Tk 5 lakh. The plant must have a modern testing lab. The licence fee for category “B” plant would be Tk 20 lakh and the annual fee Tk 2 lakh. The category “B” plant does not need to have a testing lab.
Both the categories have to bear 15 percent value-added tax.
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