Baku, Azerbaijan, April 9
By Gazenfer Hamidov – Trend:
Legal import of cell phones in Iran has registered a significant increase in last year as a result of a plan by the Iranian administration to prevent smuggling cell phones into the country.
Under the plan, cell phone users in the country need to register their devices with the country’s telecommunications user database.
Iran imported 3.224 million cell phones, worth $518.27 million during the last fiscal year, ended March 20, according to the country’s Customs Administration.
The cell phone imports registered a rise by 108.6 percent during the 12-month period.
The officials earlier announced that the annual demand for phone devices in the Iranian market is reportedly about 14 million devices and about 90 percent of this amount is smuggled into Iran.
Earlier in 2006, there was only 4 percent import tariff for imported smartphones, however, a year later the government put 60 percent import tariff on smartphones which disrupted the market and led to huge rise of illegal smartphone imports into the country.
The government later gradually decreased the tariff. Currently, there are various smartphone import taxes and tariffs which amount to 23 percent of a smartphone’s original price.