Adcom, the Indian electronics and IT brand, has accepted the fact that they have made a sale of mobile handsets to Ringing Bells and the price that they charged for each unit was Rs. 3600. However, Adcom has denied of having any information about Ringing Bells scheme of reselling the mobiles at a price of Rs. 251. The Founder and Chairman of Advantage Computers (Adcom), Sanjeev Bhatia stated, “Yes, it is true that although we sold the handsets to Ringing Bells earlier, like we sell Adcom mobiles to lakhs of users, we were absolutely unaware of the reselling plans of the company in question. Furthermore, we still haven’t been able to evaluate their pricing policy, as we sold the handsets at Rs 3,600 per unit.”
In February, Ringing Bells, a Noida-based firm has revealed its plans of manufacturing the world’s cheapest smartphone which will be sold in market for Rs. 251 only. The experts of telecom market straightaway rubbished the announcement of Ringing Bells and termed it as “impossible”. During the launch event, the review handsets that were handed over to the journalist were Adcom Ikon 4. The brand name was hidden using white ink and screen guards and sticker of Indian flag was pasted on the backside for two purposes, first to hide Adcom’s branding and second to give an impression that it is being manufactured under the ambitious project of Modi government “Make in India”.
When Sanjeev was asked about the pricing policy of Ringing Bells, he said, “We still haven’t been able to evaluate their pricing policy, as we sold the handsets at Rs 3,600 per unit. We are deeply grieved by this incident where our mobile phone has been presented to masses for Rs 251.”
Here the point to be noticed is that the mobile presented by Ringing Bells in the launch event is already sold in Indian market at a price of Rs. 3,999, while Ringing Bells says that the cost of each mobile handset will be Rs. 2,500 which they will recover by making an e-commerce market, using economies of scale, adopting innovative marketing techniques and by getting reduction in taxes.
Sanjeev Bhatia not only called it ‘the biggest scam of the millennium’ but also warned of legal action if the brand and reputation of his firm is damaged due to the business plans of Ringing Bells. This is what he maintained, “We would not hesitate from taking any legal actions against the company, in case the entire fiasco impacts ADCOM’s brand name or subsequently we face any other kind of losses. We would also like to assert that ADCOM is in no way connected or linked with Ringing Bells or Freedom 251 and bears no responsibility whatsoever, in the whole swindle and regret the inconvenience caused to our valued customers from all over the country.”
The government is already keeping an eye on the Ringing Bells and the telecom minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has very categorically stated that if the company fails to fulfill their promise, they will face legal action.
However, the number of users who registered for buying the handset was quite high as it reached six crore in just two days.
