Come July 1, the mobile phone industry here is set to witness a tectonic shift, in the name of the Goods and Services Tax (GST). "We expect the Government to bring in a substantial duty differential between locally manufactured and imported mobile phones. Creating necessary duty differential to safeguard all the local mobile phone manufacturing initiatives is a critical responsibility of the Government. Telecom services, until GST happened, attracted 15 per cent services tax. Not to mention, the cost of buying a new mobile phone is also set to go up post GST.

Source: India Today June 28, 2017 05:03 UTC