Smartphone sales to remain suspended until May 3 as Govt of India revises e-commerce guidelines

© Provided by The Financial Express Smartphones, laptops and PCs fall under the category of non-essential goods. (Photo credit: Reuters)

E-commerce websites Flipkart, Amazon and others are prohibited from selling non-essential goods until May 3, according to fresh guidelines released by the Ministry of Home Affairs on Sunday. The revised guidelines come days after the Government of India announced that it would ease the restrictions on e-commerce websites, allowing them to operate, from April 20. To be fair, the Government never said on record that e-commerce portals can start sales of non-essential goods from April 20.

https://twitter.com/PIBHomeAffairs/status/1251756442815811586

Since smartphones, laptops and PCs fall under the category of non-essential goods, e-commerce websites like Flipkart, Amazon and others can?t commence their sales from April 20. Popular brands like Realme and Xiaomi had been cueing up their launches and sales operations, ahead of April 20. While Realme was gearing to launch its new Narzo series of budget smartphones in India on April 21, Xiaomi had already started taking orders on its e-commerce website, aka Mi.com/in, with shipping to commence from April 20. OnePlus is similarly expected to reveal the India price of the newly launched OnePlus 8 Pro and OnePlus 8 later tonight.

Xiaomi India head Manu Kumar Jain has already taken to Twitter to confirm that the company is studying the fresh guidelines, and it will be out with an update soon. ?We will of course follow all Government guidelines,? Jain added. We?ve reached out to Realme regarding its upcoming launch and will update this piece as soon as we get more information.

https://twitter.com/manukumarjain/status/1251764732047929346

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