Locally assembled mobile handset is taking a big stride! The handset assemblers are planning to meet 30% of the local demand, thanks to the local quality of the assembled handsets and consumers trust. Most of the major brands are assembling locally to achieve policy support by Govt.
As much as 95 percent of the handsets sold in Bangladesh by the South Korean electronics giant Samsung are assembled in its plant in Narsingdi, in a major endorsement of the country’s fast-improving assembling capabilities.
So far five plants have started assembling locally, Samsung, Symphony, Walton, Transsion and Al Amin Brothers are those manufacturers. In addition to them, good number of local and international brands are in the process of setting up new factories, thanks to the duty structure designed to discourage imports. Currently, there is 32 percent tax on handset import. The tax comes down to 18 percent for local assembling, while for manufacturing it is about 13 percent. This tax structure prompted seven parties to seek out licenses from the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission for local assembling of devices. Those five have got their assembly lines rolling and in the first quarter of this year supplied 12.63 percent of the total demand for 76 lakh units of handsets.
Samsung assembled all handsets locally now except flagship devices, jointly partnering with local manufacturer Fair Electronics, which started assembling Samsung-branded handsets in its 58,000 square feet state-of-the-art manufacturing plant from last year. Last year they churned out 26.1 lakh units, and by the end of the current year they will account for one-fourth the supply, according to Fair Electronics.
Transsion Bangladesh, owner of Chinese brand Tecno, set up their plant in Gazipur, is leading the lot in local assembly. The plant in Gazipur is assembling about 3.5 lakh units of handsets a month, which is the highest. The company even plan to explore the export market after catering the local demand.
Local brand Walton, which was the first to set up a mobile phone assembly plant in Bangladesh in October 2017, has been assembling all its handsets locally since the middle of last year. In 2018, the assembly line churned out about 11 lakh units, according to Walton.
Market leader Symphony too has been selling handsets assembled at its plant in Ashulia since September last year and is already working on a second plant in Bangabandhu Hi-Tech City in Gazipur. Another local player Al Amin Brothers is too assembling devices of “5 Star Mobile” brand
investing about Tk 30 crore.
Thanks to local assembly, the price level of mobile phones has declined about 10 percent, according to industry players.
Three more local companies, Ok Mobile, Grameen Distribution and Anira International, are in the process of rolling out their mobile assembling plants. With the three new players, the total number of handset assembling plants in Bangladesh will be eight.
Disclaimer: The image posted here collected from web sources, used for presentation purpose only.
