As a result of the recent Customs Duty imposed by the government of Pakistan the online shopping sites in Pakistan have removed/deleted Apple IPhones and Google Pixels from their catalog of technological products being offered by these companies. Moreover, we have checked with all of the popular shopping sites established in Pakistan including the likes of Daraz, Telemart, and iShopping and we have learned thatall of the said mobile phones have been removed from their catalog. Feel freeto search for the iPhone or the Google Pixel phones on these websites as youwill find out the search, returns only cases and accessories for iPhones andthe Pixel phones at the moment, with no information about recent devicesreleased by Apple and their price in Pakistan.
The direct link for the IPhone on for the website Telemart yields that the device is out of stock for now, but the listings regarding the said phones have been removed from search results and other sections on site.This move is the likely result of a recent revision in the smartphone import policy established by the government of Pakistan. Now as per some reports, people bringing in a Rs. 24,000 smartphone from abroad have to pay an additional Rs. 10,000 Duties and other Regulatory taxes for allowance of carrying the phone in to Pakistan. This in-turn casts an uncertainty over the price at which these online shopping stores can provide apple devices, or other imported devices for that matter, to their customers.
The government, in an effort to gethold of the smuggling of smartphones in the country and in turn, just recentlyimposed stricter regulations and duties on un-verified and smuggled mobilephones while also using DIRBS (Device Identification Registration BlockingSystem) to block illegally imported phones fromusing any network in Pakistan. Now in accordave with these stricterregulations, and the consistently varying dollar prices, the cost of importingphones seem to be rapidly increasing, these matters have in turn resulted inonline shopping sites to remove these imported phones from their online directoryto avoid any legal action being taken against them for this matter.
Must Read: A Decision to Destroy Smuggled Phones should be Reconsidered by FBR
According to the website HomeShopping, Withthe DIRBS in full effect and as there is a lack of an official channel forimporting iPhones being presented to Pakistan, it has become seemingly moredifficult to sell these phones at the price that they were previously offeringcustomers. Forcing these sites to stop selling these devices on their onlinestores altogether which in turn will result in heavy losses to these onlineshopping websites!
iPhone and Pixel phones removed from online shopping websites in Pakistan!
It is still unclear if these websiteswill be allowed to in still the iPhone devices in their directory any time
