Dec 17, 2011

Vietnam - Counterfeit mobile phones returning


VietNamNet Bridge – Instead of using smart or luxurious mobile phones, a lot of people now decide to use normal phones as they need to cut down expenses. This gives an important reason for counterfeit mobile phone products to return to the Vietnamese market.


Counterfeit mobile phones sourced from China have been absent on the stock market in the last four years. People believed that these cheap products have disappeared forever, since they were refused by consumers. However, they seem to think the wrong way: counterfeit products are returning to the market.

The appearance of the mobile phones counterfeiting N8, N9 or E71 models of Nokia shows no difference with the genuine products. Everything looks like real Nokia products, from the stamps stuck on the body of the phones, to the connection portals and screens. When turning on the phones, one would see all the symbols of all functions on the screens. The products really fit the people, who want to show people that they use high grade mobile phones, but do not have much money in their pockets.

It is easy to find the mobile phone products counterfeiting the products of well known brands, such as Apple, Nokia or HTC on February 3 Road in district 10 of HCM City. At Ngan Vinh Shop, the saleswoman introduced three mobile phone models which were identical to three Nokia models E63, E71 and E72, which had the sale prices at 600,000 dong, 700,000 dong and 900,000 dong, respectively. Meanwhile, genuine products have the sale prices of several millions of dong.

However, when turning a mobile phone, the battery was found as having broken down. The saleswoman promised to give the buyer a new battery if the buyer really wanted to purchase the model.

At Yen Lan shop, just several metres far from Ngan Vinh, the saleswoman introduced some mobile phones counterfeiting iPhone 4, saying that the products were priced at between 1.1 million dong and 2.6 million dong.

The saleswoman advised the buyer to choose the product valued at 2.6 million dong, if the buyer wanted to access Internet with the mobile phone. Meanwhile, if users did not need to access Internet, he should choose the cheaper product, priced at 1.1 million dong.

Here there were a lot of special mobile phones. A product which was introduced an iPhone, had folding cover and had the quoted sale price of 600,000 dong.

A two storey shop, located in a small alley, has been well known as the place specializing in selling counterfeit mobile products. Here one could see as lot of mobile phones bearing the brands of Nokia and iPhones on the shelves of the first floor. Meanwhile, the second floor was the place, which gathered technicians who received orders from clients on fixing mistakes and provided maintenance services.

Here one could find all kinds of the models which counterfeit the latest models available on the market, including N8, N9, or the old models such as Nokia 8210, 2230 priced at just 150,000 dong. There were not only Nokia counterfeited products, but there were high grade products with iPhone and HTC brands as well.

Like all counterfeit products, the counterfeit mobile phone products bear all kinds of “diseases”. The differences between genuine and counterfeit products can only be seen when turning the products on. When pressing “menu”, one would have to make a strong pressing to get the result. Some buyers say that when they inserted simcards into the phones, they could see only a half of the contact list, while it was unclear where the other part of the list was.

Especially, one could see the symbol of the strong wave on the screen of the mobile phones, but in fact, no connection can be obtained. Sometimes, the notice of asking users to insert simcards appears on the screens, even though the simcards have been inserted already. The function of showing maps or Ovi just exist on paper, because it is unable to access Internet with the mobile phones. Especially, some products even do not allow to catch FM wave.


Source: SGTT



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