Have I Got A Deal for You!

I have never enjoyed great success opting for those massive discounts on name brands – especially the ones appearing with annoying regularity as online pop-ups.

Case in point: last year, I ordered a $30 pair of Oakley sport sunglasses which as anyone familiar with the brand knows is roughly 1/5 the retail price. A month later, the glasses came – in a crumpled package replete with a return address in Mandarin.

These knockoff “Oakleys” were constructed of such substandard materials that after just three uses, one of the lenses came tumbling out.

Never again.

Which brings me to the topic de jour – that of a $4 smartphone.

Let me repeat that for emphasis – a $4 smartphone.

By contrast most smartphones carry a price tag of near or over $200, provided they’re not part of a free upgrade package by one of the major carriers. And if you don’t have a current plan with say Verizon or AT&T, it may well run north of $400.

But here’s the rub about this new product of bargain basement technology – you have to go to India to get it.

According to recent reports, a relatively unknown technology company appropriately titled “Ringing Bells Ltd,” is set to release something called the Freedom 251, which comes with a four-inch screen as well as front and back cameras and sells for 251 rupees (about $4).

By contrast in India, an iPhone can retail for as much as $700 in a country which boasts the second highest population of cell-phone consumers with 222 million – about 17 percent of the population according to Forrester Research. But that base is expected to grow to 517 million by 2021 and where the average annual salary is just over $5,000, a $4 smartphone would have little trouble getting into the hands of eager buyers.

Logistics could pose somewhat of a problem, as when the Freedom 251 made its debut in February, more than 70 million people attempted to purchase one and promptly crashed its website. The company will now use a lottery system for new buyers.

I know of no CPA or anyone associated with the accounting profession in my current circle that doesn’t own at least one or more smartphones. And considering the profession’s propensity to shop for bargains I can imagine for less than the price of a Happy Meal at McDonald’s, some would be more than willing to take a flyer on one if it ever reaches our shores.

But when it comes to too-good-to-be-true bargains whether smartphones or sunglasses, I have this recurring image of its screen falling out.