Ringing Bells,the company that promised the world’s cheapest smartphone for a price of just Rs.251 seems to run into troubles managing its expenses even before delivering its first handset!
Despite the huge success and being received heavy booking in the month of February, the company has not been able to source phones at the promised sale price, thus being forced to sell them at a heavy loss of over Rs 900 per unit. This goes against the management’s earlier stance of making a profit of Rs 31 per phone.
Sources said Chadha -who was introduced as the president of the company – had a “massive showdown” with promoter Mohit Goel “over financial matters”. “It is now Goel who now runs the company and Chadha does not play an active role,” an official said.
Chadha said he was never employed by the company. “I was never working with Ringing Bells. I was always there as a consultant,” he said to the source.
“The procurement cost per device is around Rs 1,200, which means there is a loss of around Rs 950 on each device,” a source said.
For now the company has taken off its device, Freedom 251 from its website. The other devices that the company displays on the website are Smart101, Master and 4U feature phones which are also yet available!
People are curious to get their hands on the much-touted Freedom-251. Only time will tell how this promise is gonna be fulfilled!