Kathmandu, October 3
As in the past years, the sale of mobile phones has skyrocketed of late in the run-up to Dashain, the biggest festival of Nepalis. To meet the market demand, the country imported around 1.5 million mobile phone sets worth over Rs 10 billion in the past two months.
The Department of Customs data show Nepal imported mobile phones worth Rs 10.36 billion from mid-July to mid-September 2021. The amount is 34 per cent more than the worth of imports in the same period last year.
In this period, 1 million and 498,765 sets were imported, which is over 505,000 more than last year’s.
Yet, traders and consumers say the import is still insufficient to meet the soaring demand. In particular, there is a shortage of budget smartphones, they say.
Pranaya Ratna Sthapit, the business head of Samsung Nepal, nonetheless, says the international market is also facing the same problem.
