GOQii moves SC over higher customs duty on fitness trackers

New Delhi: Fitness technology company GOQii Technologies on Tuesday sought Supreme Court's intervention to decide whether its imported fitness bands and activity trackers are communication devices attracting higher customs duty of 10% or 20%, or pedometers attracting a lower rate of 7.5%.

A bench led by Justice PS Narsimha sought response from the customs department on GOQii Technologies' appeal challenging classification of fitness bands as communication devices by the Customs, Excise and Service Tax Appellate Tribunal on April 13.

The tribunal had held that GOQii fitness bands and activity trackers cannot be classified as simple pedometers under Customs Tariff Heading (CTH) 9029, and are more appropriately treated as devices capable of data communication under CTH 8517.


Stating that activity trackers are equipped with various medical-grade sensors, GOQii told SC that bluetooth connectivity was only incidental and used merely for syncing data with mobile applications. The company claimed that the devices could function independently.