Excelsior Correspondent
Srinagar, Jan 5: With internet shut for around 5 months now, the smartphone industry has taken a giant hit across Kashmir as the estimates suggest that that there has been more than 80 per cent decline in sales graph since August.
The experts associated with the smartphone business told Excelsior that Kashmir is a market for 40,000 mobile phones which has now come down to not more than 5000.
“The sales are down by around 80 percent in Kashmir, thus, bringing the business to a grinding halt. Those associated with the trade are hardly being able to push the business any forward,” said Amir Bhat, who is associated with the industry in Srinagar.
Apart from the dip in sales, another aspect of the smartphone industry in Kashmir is that a major portion of youth working as sales executives have also lost their jobs post August 5.
“The availability of the manpower is directly related to the profitability, while the profitability has nosedived, so has the employability as so many sales executives have lost their jobs,” Amir added.
He said that the industry is solely dependent on the internet and in its absence sales graph has gone all the way down, with less hopes of seeing a revival if the internet gags continued.
“The administration must review its decision of banning the internet services as the measure has dented all the businesses in general and the smartphone industry in particular. The ground situation is deplorable which the administration should now look into,” he added.
The owners of the mobile stores said that there is less demand and that they are not able to remain up to the date with regard to the new models that are coming to the market.
“It is solely based on internet. We don’t know what’s new. Customers don’t know what’s new. Nobody is coming for upgrading their existing models to the newer versions. Only those who have either lost or got their mobile phones damaged are coming to us,” said another mobile store owner.
Customers, on the other side, are also not satisfied with the availability of products at the mobile stores in Kashmir. They rarely find what they are searching for.
“I came here to buy a particular product here, but they don’t have it. They are not even able to present the specifications to me because of the non-availability of the internet,” said Ali Asghar, a customer looking for an upgrade of his mobile device.
The stakeholders, who are now at the brink of not being able to sustain on the business anymore in the absence of internet services, are saying that if the restoration of mobile internet is a problem, “what is stopping the administration from resuming the broadband services?”
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