Smartphone prices may rise up to 25% under GST regime

NEW DELHI: Prices of smartphones are expected to firm up by nearly a fourth this year, owing to rising cost of components and the proposed change in tax structure under the goods and services tax ( GST) regime.

India’s mobile phone market is expected to grow only marginally in 2017, to 270 million phones by shipments from 265 million, while the share of smartphones in the total handset shipments may increase by 5 percentage points, Cybermedia Research said in a note on Tuesday.

“As per the present understanding of the implications of the GST, the prices could go 15- 25% upward through 2017,” the research firm said, while sharing major trends that could occur in 2017. “However, the timing of the implementation of GST will be crucial with the finance minister first keeping the window of April to September open (for its rollout), while the recent indications are of around July,” the firm added.