Budget Smartphones

Revenue: Down $500 million. Shipments: Down 12%. India’s smartphone market logged its weakest calendar-year start in five years, as buyers delayed upgrades amid rising living costs and global uncertainty.

Smartphone prices in India have leapt up as input costs rise. Given how vital these handsets are, they deserve tax relief just to help keep them within the reach of our multitudes. This is no ordinary product category.

While the industry has improved significantly, there are still areas that require improvement and support, says Meity secretary S Krishnan.

This week we wrote about India’s slowing tech jobs, the global chip crunch pushing up phone prices, Vodafone Idea’s narrow escape, and Apple’s design secrets.

Chip companies are making more high-bandwidth memory chips—used in graphic processing units that Nvidia sells for artificial intelligence data centres. This has created a supply shortage of general-purpose chips.

Realme tells the Andhra Pradesh high court it risked major supply-chain disruptions and mounting losses if the inventory was not promptly released.

The first six months of 2025 have seen muted smartphone sales. Despite a strong showing in July, analysts do not expect a surge in the upcoming festive season. The largest consumer electronics segment is on track for a fourth straight year of slump.