Ringing Bells Pvt. Ltd. , an Indian smartphone maker based in NOIDA has surprised the world by launching world’s cheapest smartphone for just Rs. 251 which makes it $3.7 in USD. There have been many controversies since then for the company. The company even tried to answer some of them. Company provided us a website to book the phone in advance but the website was very slow & crashed almost all the time. We have already compared the Freedom 251 against some of the competitors but the Freedom 251 is a clear winner because of it’s specifications. We do have a dedicated page regarding Freedom 251 & about it’s availability & how to buy. After exceeding the limit of bookings, the company closed the booking window for the Phase 1.
Now the Managing Director Mr. Mohit Goel has managed to answer some of the questions about this phone during his interview with Indian newspaper Times Of India.
When he was asked about some controversies against the phone & his company , he said ,”Why am I being hounded? What wrong have I done?” Further he said on clarifying himself & his company, “Has there ever been a case of income-tax evasion against me or my company, or has there been an FIR filed against me in any police station? Why am I being called a ‘bhagora’ (who’ll run away with the money)? I intend to do a valid business, just like any other startup, and I have a business plan ready.”
It was already reported that company has got some millions of numbers of bookings for the device in first phase. he said that the company is working on offline as well as online models, “We are taking online bookings for only 25 lakh units in the first batch due to limited supplies, while giving another 25 lakh through offline distributors. I will deliver the handsets before June 30. All the money that we receive from customers through the payment gateway will be kept in an escrow account and we will touch it only when we deliver the devices” It was already cleared by the company that they have money in the payment gateway named PayuMoney. They are trusted payment solution providers when comes to online payment.
When asked about Adcom being involved in this or not? The device being manufactured by Adcom or not, the company president Mr. Ashok Chaddha said, “Some of the devices had the Adcom branding as we sourced panel (screen) from them. However, the final device will have our branding and the phone will have the same features and design that we had showcased“
On price breakage Mr. Ashok Chaddha told something new this time,”The price that works out per device is roughly around Rs 1,500, We will source the devices from a supplier in Noida, who will be assembling the units for us after getting components from Taiwan.” And while we do this, we also start the work to identify land and suppliers for setting up our manufacturing locations. For this, we have identified Noida while also looking at locations in Uttarakhand, West Bengal, Bihar and Punjab,”
“Economies of scale gets it down to around Rs 1,200, and thereafter an online sales model cuts down marketing and sales expenses, giving us further savings,” he says. And to this we will add marketing piggybacks from companies whose applications we load on the devices. We will save around Rs 300 per device more through this”
It was also in discussion & people’s attention that the device was having UI & icons from Apple iPhone. He also mentioned that the company is in talk with some other bigger e-commerce sites like Goibibo etc to get some more apps on their device & this will get them more profit, “We will also monetize from the heavy traffic on our website and will make it into a marketplace for other brands to hop on. This will also help us to bring down the cost.“
