India seeks to block Chinese firms from sub-Rs 12,000 phone market

Chinese scum I agree , but for us end users mota Bhai will sell a feature phone at 10 k now , we may go back 10 years . The last jio Android phone failed . It was too expensive for less than mediocre hardware . Now Nokia too will sell sd 450 chip or unisoc processor phones with 2 GB ram and 32 GB storage with 720p HD screens at 11999. In the end we will be the losers I guess , and a few select Indian businessmen will profit to offset high 5g spectrum price buying .
It is true that they changed the market dynamics but Chinese dumping has hurt every market in the long run with Chinese steel creating havoc in UK and EU. Their endgame is to kill off local companies using CCP backing and then create reliance on the Chinese ones.

Anti-dumping tariffs face larger scrutiny at WTO, so levelling the playing field in terms of local sourcing and incorporation will probably be more useful. It is not as if India can directly target China-only companies as it will create huge problems in WTO.
 
Let me tell you the story of Micromax, the Indian brand!

Kids might not remember but there was a time when Indian market was flooded with cheap generic chinese feature phones. These phones had double/triple sim slots, double battery, resistive touch screen, extremely loud speaker, metal body, everything first in the budget segment. People stopped buying nokia, sony. So these companies lobbied to ban such mobiles. This is how Micromax, lava, and many other Indian brands were born. These were the original importers of generic phones. After the ban, all they did was slapping some logo on those generic phones. All of the mobiles they sold were rebranded chinese phones. It was all cool and dandy for a few years then people started realizing these Indian brands provided disastrous service. People would keep their mobiles with service center for repair work but they wouldn't get it back. Then came Xiaomi and others, people saw these newcomers provide much better service which was on par to nokia, lg or sony. From then on Indian brands who dumped only trash on Indian public, who gave middle finger to Indian public when it came to service, they all went downhill. And not a single Indian shed a tear.
 
Let me tell you the story of Micromax, the Indian brand!

Kids might not remember but there was a time when Indian market was flooded with cheap generic chinese feature phones. These phones had double/triple sim slots, double battery, resistive touch screen, extremely loud speaker, metal body, everything first in the budget segment. People stopped buying nokia, sony. So these companies lobbied to ban such mobiles. This is how Micromax, lava, and many other Indian brands were born. These were the original importers of generic phones. After the ban, all they did was slapping some logo on those generic phones. All of the mobiles they sold were rebranded chinese phones. It was all cool and dandy for a few years then people started realizing these Indian brands provided disastrous service. People would keep their mobiles with service center for repair work but they wouldn't get it back. Then came Xiaomi and others, people saw these newcomers provide much better service which was on par to nokia, lg or sony. From then on Indian brands who dumped only trash on Indian public, who gave middle finger to Indian public when it came to service, they all went downhill. And not a single Indian shed a tear.
I recall lemon being one such brand, with ear deafening speakers.
While reducing the reliance on Chinese is good in the long term, how much of the components is manufactured in India is a bigger questions.
They could have started it off with non-essential products like diyas and other Diwali lanterns rather than mobile phones .
Peeple thinking "Assembled in India" is same as "Make in India" are so wrong. I can already foresee return of Samsung J-series if this goes through.
It's not like the Chinese were here to do samaj-seva. Data is the new oil and Mukesh wants to exploit it as badly as the Chinese or Americans.
 
Chinese scum I agree , but for us end users mota Bhai will sell a feature phone at 10 k now , we may go back 10 years . The last jio Android phone failed . It was too expensive for less than mediocre hardware . Now Nokia too will sell sd 450 chip or unisoc processor phones with 2 GB ram and 32 GB storage with 720p HD screens at 11999. In the end we will be the losers I guess , and a few select Indian businessmen will profit to offset high 5g spectrum price buying .
1. Nobody is being forced to buy anything.
2. There in not only one player! We will see many Indian companies rising out of this. Reliance has repeatedly failed in consumer space. No monopoly survives in open market without any technical moat. Market dynamics always reign supreme.
 
Problem with Indian companies is that, they will just copy chinese designs, buy from china and assemble in india. So you'll pay what you're paying now, plus the crony capitalist margin.
Most Indian companies don't want to innovate or come with new stuff. They just want fat ready made margins for doing bare minimum. All this, keeping in mind that yes the Chinese are a nuisance on the whole.
maybe micromax will do a comback. Hoping it does.
Let it die pls.
 
Problem with Indian companies is that, they will just copy chinese designs, buy from china and assemble in india. So you'll pay what you're paying now, plus the crony capitalist margin.
Most Indian companies don't want to innovate or come with new stuff. They just want fat ready made margins for doing bare minimum. All this, keeping in mind that yes the Chinese are a nuisance on the whole.

Let it die pls.
Chinese companies also did the same thing for many years,copied Japanese and American products, sold them for cheap. Made good money and then started doing their RnD and start competiting and even killing big American and Japanese company.

For example Look at Dji killed GoPro in drone and now probably will do the same with action camera.

So yes for quite some time we will see Indian companies doing business that way which is why in my early post I said people who cannot afford may have to suffer for sometime.

We have to give Indian companies a chance too if we can live with Chinese duplicate items for so many years . We have to go through it again this time for Indian companies.

I hope government plays this well and encourage these companies too and it just doesn't become another political play.

Problem is our leaders lack vision and we end up messing most of these decisions. Even if they are actually right decision.
 
1. Nobody is being forced to buy anything.
By selectively banning phones below 12k, you are basically forcing customer to purchase another phone from a different brand other than what he would want to purchase.

Market dynamics always reign supreme.
Laissez faire clearly states govt should stay away from market or intervene when there's a tendency towards monopoly. The govt inaction post 2014 and jio trials showed how it skewed the market by removing 9-10 players to just 3.
We have to give Indian companies a chance too if we can live with Chinese duplicate items for so many years .
Wasn't Micromax given a chance to rise under Atmanirbharta Bharat?

Problem is our leaders lack vision and we end up messing most of these decisions. Even if they are actually right decision.
Nailed it!!
We have to go through it again this time for Indian companies.
Indians are patriotic but shoving down options is not the way forward. If you want to really benefit people then give them choice and let our home breed compete and come with better products at that price.
That whole logic of banning phones below 12k is plain rubbish. Better to ban the entire company than being selective.
 
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Laissez faire clearly states govt should stay away from market or intervene when there's a tendency towards monopoly. The govt inaction post 2014 and jio trials showed how it skewed the market by removing 9-10 players to just 3.
The disruption resulted in data coverage penetration and data market expansion with costs reducing extensively. We still have 4 serious players. Others are flexing again and leader is slowing down. Wait and watch for 2-3 years. Without technical monopoly, commercial monopoly won't survive. As I said, market dynamics always reign supreme.

One more thing, With COAI push for usage of street furniture, it's getting increasingly even playing field for all.
shoving down options
Exact strategy employed by China I believe.
 
Indians are patriotic but shoving down options is not the way forward. If you want to really benefit people then give them choice and let our home breed compete and come with better products at that price.
That whole logic of banning phones below 12k is plain rubbish. Better to ban the entire company than being selective.
Indians are not patriotic.
During Galwan when boycott Chinese stuff was at its peak.
The market survey showed that we actually end up buying more.

One study showed Pakistanis are more patriotic than Indians .

Having said that I will admit I also ended up buying a realme phone during that time.

I do genuinely try to avoid buying Chinese and few times have managed to be successful also. Specially for home electronics where Indians and other brands are nicely competitive too .

About Micromax they needed more than just a chance . There are ways where government can play behind the scene role to keep companies fighting. Not just finances it is also about making right diplomatic moves to give them a push in global market.
CCP played a big role in making many Chinese company a global player .
 
Micromax and other Indian brands of yesteryear were just rebranded Chinese imports with worse service. Unless and until India has FAB units to supply a nation of billion+ Make in India is a pipe dream. Make in India initiative is just like Lays chips, very little content with good packaging. There are a range of things which can be made in India but I'm not sure quality electronics is one of them.

Indians are selectively patriotic. When fresh news about some anti chinese stuff comes about we all make some appreciative and supportive noises the rest of the time its about our pockets and our bottom line. Can't say I blame them for that attitude. With all the political agendas in play, is our Quality of life improving? There is still a lot of red tape and bribe and corruption, people still sell votes for whatever money they can see in return.

At the end of the day, we can only pay our taxes, be law abiding citizens and be helpful where possible. Anything else is just a passing cloud. Entire world is Made in China
 
I think Adani is entering the mobile market. Whenever, adani wanted to enter a market, govt closed the imports in that segment. Remember solar?

If Indians weren't patriotic, Samsung would have needed to improved its low end mobiles. There's enough anti-china narrative in the country that they can keep selling '2021 version', '2022 version' of the old phones.

We are stepping back in pre-1993 communism. "Hey Tata, you are not permitted to make light cars", "Hey Maruti, you are not permitted to make heavy passenger vehicles." What car tata could manufacture used to be a parliamentary topic and you could see politicians like Indira Gandhi debating on such topics. It's happening all over again. "Hey you xyz mobile maker, you are not permitted to make budget phones".

The 95% ED investigations are political farce because only 5% investigations land in the court with any evidence (As per the numbers given by govt itself). All parties have used it when they were in the power to lawfully but undemocratically restrict opponents. It's the only law through which arrest can be made without court's permission and without any evidence. Everyone suffers from ED in the end.

If chinese causing problems then why not ban 100% of the made in china mobiles? What's up with the 12k threshold?

Yu would think if politicians had some iBalls, they would buy an Intex themselves. But by any chance if they got a Karbonn copy, they fear, their MicroMax won't work anymore. With no Spice left, even their Lawa of Lyf is going to run away.
 
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Not sure why Micromax is getting so much flak. Of course any rational player will start by importing. They can't be expected to spend 5-7 years before launching a phone to the market, can they. But Micromax did eventually manufacture a lot of components in India, they now have manufacturing four plants in India.

Their entire story is complex but my recollection was it was the patents issue that originally did them in. Like Ericsson has around 33000 patents across 2G, 3G and 4G that they license. Other incumbent handset manufacturers have built their own pool of key patents as well, over the years. This creates a strong barrier for new entrants who have to pay for their seat at the table with precious cash and royalties that affect their margins and pricing ability. When Google (another late entrant) wanted to enter into mobile phone hardware, it bought the dead Motorola mainly for the patents it held, to get into a better cross-license negotiating position with incumbent manufacturers.

Micromax did not have the war chest to buy a BBM or Nokia, not did they hold a corresponding pool of patents. They were forced to license patents at a cost which made their phones uncompetitive. Especially in a price conscious segment, this was tough to overcome once they started abiding by the law.

The rapid demand shift towards 4G after Jio's entry was another huge blow to Micromax who had investments and large unsold stock for 3G devices.

The market definitely shows no strong understanding of the long-term techno-geo-political nature of the problem. On this forum itself there is discussion of not preferring Samsung's Exynos-based phones because of the chip's power requirements. The fabbed-in-Korea Exynos is the only non-Chinese mobile processor on the market for most of us apart from a few Snapdragons. Even Apple's chips are TSMC fabs. But at least these are American designs. What the Chinese military puts in Huawei HiSilicon is anyone's guess.

This is exactly the place for the government to step in with anti-competition, anti-dumping, and indigenisation incentives.

But a true solution for this issue will need to solve many seemingly intractable problems:
  • You need to have an existing patent pool to be able to negotiate mobile patents and keep your devices priced affordably.
  • You need to sell globally and have a small recovery timeframe for your investments because demand patterns change quickly.
  • You need relations with chip suppliers that can withstand a Taiwan war, because consumers are not forgiving towards even using last generation process chips even if you set up your local fabs.
Who is this Indian manufacturer who will go into such depth, and how will the government help them emerge is really an open question. I really don't see Jio being able to do this, they can't deep-dive and deliver anything apart from commodity monopoly plays. Micromax is still the best bet in my mind.
 
In 2011, Google bought Motorola for the betterment of the whole android ecosystem and its partners like Samsung, LG, Micromax.

In 2013, Ericsson sued micromax for 8 patents and won. Source

In 2014, Micromax became the king of Indian mobile scene. It was the highest selling brand. More than samsung. They also sought to block the sales of onePlus in India but lost in the court.

In 2015, Some users found micromax was installing spyware randomly without user's consent and sending data to china. source

I think Indians gave fair chance to Micromax to prove itself.
 
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What people usually don't recognise that Govt and Public are two separate entities in India. Latter entity is voiceless.

Govt tells public, your diesel cars are to be scrapped but let us build more coal plants.

Govt tells public, pay 2 more years in emi for buying BS6 vehicle but let us build more coal plants.

Govt tells public, don't import cheap phones from china but let us still import iPhones from china.

It's nothing short of offloading anti china/global warming/anything rhetoric on poor public.
You are way off the mark , do you know how much a unit of electricity costs in pakistan right now? 44 PKR and its even going up they use natural gas and oil to make electricity , do you want to pay 20-25 rs per KWH look at whats happening in Europe or what happens in Texas in winters , Energy needs to be diversified renewable energy cannot take over base load especially during nights , coal is the way until india builds sufficient nuclear capacity that should have happened years ago if it weren't for the down right incompetent govts.

please stop buying into western cool aid of renewable just look at germany
This is what the 2nd part of my statement refers... They are just destroying competitor shops to sell their stuff..
which is perfectly fine , chinese needs to be kicked out to make way for indian manufacturers.



I would be happy to pay extra for every electronic item if it made in india because the only way we will have manufacturing in india is we COMMIT TO IT LONG TERM , THIS IMPORTED IS BETTER MENTALITY has been the bane of indian society.

Manufacturing at large scale is the biggest challenge look up elon's statement on this he regularly points it that manufacturing is the most difficult part there needs to be commitment by the company which can only commit when govt gives them benefit.


look at this US govt giving 280 billion dollar boost to chip makers like intel and other which are already a 800 billion USD gorilla thats how you dominate the globe thats how you become a force to be reckoned with.

WE INDIANS ARE TOO SHORT SIGHTED AND ARE ALWAYS PENNY WISE POUND FOOLISH.

look at the sorry state of our defence industry we could have been making all those weapons at home and even exporting them and becoming a global player yet we are still the largest importer of weapons because of lack of commitment by our own armed forces and corruption and incompetence as well of the MOD.

instead we patted our selves on the back for saving few cents on imported goods and called it a day.

we cannot out import china in terms of weapons we absolutely need to make every weaponry and all kinds of critical technology at home we need to make all the medicines , APIS , electronics , Weapons and whatever we import from china.

every cent we give to chinese is being used to fund war against us and we need to cut dependence on them , that's the only way this will require LONG TERM COMMITTMENT BY GOVT , PRIVATE PLAYERS and most importantly PEOPLE OF INDIA.
I think Adani is entering the mobile market. Whenever, adani wanted to enter a market, govt closed the imports in that segment. Remember solar?

If Indians weren't patriotic, Samsung would have needed to improved its low end mobiles. There's enough anti-china narrative in the country that they can keep selling '2021 version', '2022 version' of the old phones.

We are stepping back in pre-1993 communism. "Hey Tata, you are not permitted to make light cars", "Hey Maruti, you are not permitted to make heavy passenger vehicles." What car tata could manufacture used to be a parliamentary topic and you could see politicians like Indira Gandhi debating on such topics. It's happening all over again. "Hey you xyz mobile maker, you are not permitted to make budget phones".

The 95% ED investigations are political farce because only 5% investigations land in the court with any evidence (As per the numbers given by govt itself). All parties have used it when they were in the power to lawfully but undemocratically restrict opponents. It's the only law through which arrest can be made without court's permission and without any evidence. Everyone suffers from ED in the end.

If chinese causing problems then why not ban 100% of the made in china mobiles? What's up with the 12k threshold?

Yu would think if politicians had some iBalls, they would buy an Intex themselves. But by any chance if they got a Karbonn copy, they fear, their MicroMax won't work anymore. With no Spice left, even their Lawa of Lyf is going to run away.
Ahh YES ADANI and AMBANI you must be a congress and rahul baba fan , and yes all chinese brands need to be kicked out and once indian companies can make cheap phones they need to scale up to make expensive phones , you need to learn to walk before running this is real world please learn a thing or two about manufacturing
 
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You are way off the mark , do you know how much a unit of electricity costs in pakistan right now? 44 PKR and its even going up they use natural gas and oil to make electricity , do you want to pay 20-25 rs per KWH look at whats happening in Europe or what happens in Texas in winters , Energy needs to be diversified renewable energy cannot take over base load especially during nights , coal is the way until india builds sufficient nuclear capacity that should have happened years ago if it weren't for the down right incompetent govts.

please stop buying into western cool aid of renewable just look at germany
Germany implemented renewable policy badly, France is a better example - full nuclear, net energy exporter and cheap electricity. Also, India imports 90% of its oil AND doesn't have enough coal, so we don't really have a choice, have to go full renewable.
 
Chinese scum I agree , but for us end users mota Bhai will sell a feature phone at 10 k now , we may go back 10 years . The last jio Android phone failed . It was too expensive for less than mediocre hardware . Now Nokia too will sell sd 450 chip or unisoc processor phones with 2 GB ram and 32 GB storage with 720p HD screens at 11999. In the end we will be the losers I guess , and a few select Indian businessmen will profit to offset high 5g spectrum price buying .
i didn't know people had crystal ball here never saw it in buy sell thread , btw no one is pointing gun to your head to buy made in india phone , you can always buy iphone and flaunt it and pretend to be cool :/
Germany implemented renewable policy badly, France is a better example - full nuclear, net energy exporter and cheap electricity. Also, India imports 90% of its oil AND doesn't have enough coal, so we don't really have a choice, have to go full renewable.
india does mine a lot of coal , of the total electricity produced by coal the domestic coal ranges from 40-60% and rest is imported and i agree we need to diversify but relying on just renewable is simply not feasible or possible because renewable simply does not have capacity to scale up.

it would need to be a mix of solar , nuclear , coal , natural gas is simply out of equation unless you want to become next sri lanka or upcoming Bangladesh and pakistan and let the value of rupee fall to 100 INR
 
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