 |
| |
WEEKLY
SECTIONS |
 |
|
 |
| Celebrating Eid with new mobile phone |
|
|
|
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Noor Aftab
Rawalpindi
It has become a trend around every year on Eidul Fitr that youngsters sell their old mobile phones and replace them with new trendy cell phones. Large numbers of youngsters are now roaming in city markets for getting new mobile phones.
Contrary to the first two weeks of the holy month of Ramazan, when the mobile phone shops were mostly doing their routine businesses, the shopkeepers have been continuously receiving shoppers especially students, who apparently have a craze to appear with new or changed set on the occasion of Eid.
The market sources said that the prices of cellular phones are generally not linked with Eid and consumers often do not face any price hike due to which they wish to sell new or second-hand mobile set before the big day.
“New generation of slick and trendy cell phones always attract youngsters and most of them purchase newer ones on the occasion of Eid. I personally know many people who wait for the occasion of Eid to buy new mobile phone sets,” said Nawazish Ali, a student of a local university. The places mostly being visited by the people for purchase of mobile phone sets include Dubai Plaza, Saddar Market, College Road and Bara Market.
The last time the government had announced a custom duty on the import of new cell phones that led to an increase in their prices in the open market, but now the situation is quite different, as prices of most of the branded sets witnessed no further increase before Eidul Fitr. Pakistan is one of the top most countries in Asia where Eid greetings via SMS is so popular that hundreds of thousands of SMS are exchanged in the span of few days.
The claims made by cellular companies also show that more than 60 million SIMs have so far been purchased by the consumers. A neck-to-neck competition between the cellular companies to facilitate their customers led to initiation of so many attractive packages offering so much to them like free night calls. The cheap calls rates have made this facility affordable to large groups of people who now feel comfortable with excessive use of cellular networks service.
“As latest model mobile phones have high prices so many customers offer their own sets with some cash to obtain new sets of their choice. Now the customers include people from all age groups because the use of mobile phone has turned from fashion into necessity of life,” said Zahid Khan, a shopkeeper at the College Road. He said huge number of customers are also coming for repair of their mobile phone sets and it has become so difficult to entertain all of them, adding, it is generally seen that purchasing and repair of mobile set increase manifold in the last week of Ramazan.
|
|
|
| Back
| Send
this story to Friend | Print
Version |
|
|
|
ISSN 1563-9479 
