Go buy those gizmos, they are cheaper now

CHANDIGARH: The heat’s not all that’ll sizzle this summer. If industry trends are any indication, even the consumer electronic segment is set to a burn off the fat.
A drop of 50 per cent in premium products like laptops, digital cameras and DVD players is enough to make the middle class swoon.
In the mini-budget, recorded VCDs, DVDs have been exempted from excise duty.Baggage rules have been liberalised for gizmos and executives carrying laptops as part of their baggage have also been exempted from customs duty.
‘‘A steady decline in prices over the past two years has seen prices of gadgets tumble rapidly,’’ said Randeep Singh, manager of a multi-national company. ‘‘Compared to the last two years, laptops and DVD players have now become cheap.
Now with the finance minister move on cut in custom and excise duty, even the most high-end gizmos are on the decline,’’ said Singh. The company’s range of home theatre systems cost upwards of Rs 80,000, they now have a new model available at Rs 42,500.
‘‘Laptops, which were considered as an elite product, have cut down price by 25-30 per cent. The reason for the price plunge is to directly compete against with the desktops PC market. Now, an upmarket notebook is priced at Rs 55,000 as against Rs 98,000 in 2001-02,’’ said Sunil Sahdev of another company.
Another company has introduced its entry level laptops with Intel Celeron processor-based mobile computer, priced for less than Rs 44,000, while the Pentium 4-based system has been tagged below Rs 50,000.
Sources in the electronic industry indicate that digital SLR cameras, which were priced at Rs 1,50,000 in 2002 have come down to about Rs 75,000, a 47 per cent drop in price. Similarly, digital handycams, which were priced at Rs 35,000 for the basic models, are now priced at Rs 28,000, again a drop of 26 per cent. Likewise the DVD players, priced at Rs 18,000 are today priced Rs 6,000, a whopping drop of about 67 per cent.
‘‘This would help in reducing the gap between the organised and unorganised sector and would curb the growth of the grey market,’’ said a computer executive.
Another factor for the decline in the prices has been due to the fast technology growth, said Sahdev and added to this, the higher replacement cycle has helped this sector grow.
Earlier, customers used to keep TVs and music systems for over 10-15 years, but now they are queuing up to upgrade with 4-5 years and two years in case of cell phones.