Freedom 251 deliveries to begin from tomorrow

Zee Media Bureau

New Delhi: Ringing Bells, a little-known company that ran into controversy after announcing a Rs 251 'smartphone', will start deliveries of the handset to customers from Tuesday (June 28).

Deliveries will start to customers who have registered for buying the phone.

Ringing Bells began selling the handset, Freedom 251, via its website in February. But the launch of the smartphone, touted to be the world's cheapest, swirled into controversy, with some calling it a ponzy scheme.

Also, the website of the company crashed during two-day sale due to huge response from prospective buyers. The company claimed that around 30,000 customers had booked the phone despite the glitch.

The company, however, withdrew the product and refunded the payments to customers following a close scrutiny by government agencies.

The company had said about 30,000 people paid for booking the phone and over 7 crore people registered for it.

Later, the company said that it would deliver the phone on cash-on-delivery mode to those who placed the order.

Ringing Bells president Ashok Chaddha had explained earlier that the manufacturing cost of the phone was about Rs 2,500, which had to be recovered through a series of measures like economies of scale, innovative marketing, reduction in duties and creating an e-commerce marketplace.

He had said that the company would make phones in India that would lead to 13.8 percent savings on duties and further save on cost by selling it online.

The phone was to be manufactured in Noida and Uttaranchal.