Azernews.Az

By Nigar Orujova

Today, more people around the world talk on mobile phones at home, office, streets and cafes and so on. Azerbaijan with its 9.5 million pouplation is no exception. Mobile phone penetration rate stands at 110 percent in the country.

Taking aside the dangers of using mobile phones with poor quality, some people still continue to buy the cheapest phones which may explode during charging.

However, the most popular phones in the country are still those acclaimed around the world: Samsung phones, Apple, and Nokia.

To regulate the import of mobile phones in the country, Azerbaijan has recently shifted to IMEI system. At present, the IMEI-code database in Azerbaijan includes more than 13 million mobile phones. The new system allows obtaining accurate information about the state of the mobile phone market.

The new system and saturation of the market decreased the mobile phones import by more than 6 percent in 2014. Over 88,000 mobile phones and other devices operating in wireless networks totaling $5.1 million were brought to the country last year.

This market is renovating along with new mobile phone models that emerge monthly. With the development of electronic trade, many people have started to buy mobile phones online, as it give them freedom of choice.

However, this has created problems from legislative point of view. The issue is that the mobile phones imported in Azerbaijan should be registered.

Earlier, a batch of mobile phone was confiscated at the border and the customs bodies began an investigation into the incident.

In particular, evasion of customs duties is the main reason behind the trend particularly when mobile phones are sent by mail to a recipient. Eight thousands of such phones were imported into the country in just one month. But e-commerce is not exempt from taxation in Azerbaijan.

For this reason, Azerbaijan will set special conditions on import of mobile phones through e-commerce. It should be noted that the restriction will not affect other products.

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Nigar Orujova is AzerNews’s staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @o_nigar

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