Bangalore: Aakash, India’s low cost tablets made recent headlines by being the cheapest one available in market. Students were in store for a big surprise, as Datawind, the makers of Aakash 2 offered the tablets to them at just 1,132, which hardly touched the $20 mark, after a government subsidy. For others, it’s made available for $45 retail, yet retaining the tag of cheapest tablet in India, probably the world too.    

The price of these gadgets, along with almost all the “smart” functions similar to high end devices, will bring a lot of people to computing world, a sure excitement for the people of developing nations like India and china.

But the people of developed countries just can’t get the tablets with same functionality as of Aakash 2 at its price. Though the tablets are cheap, the distance from supply chains or the manufacturing base of these devices to the countries where they are marketed, will add 100 percent to the cost of tablets, and then it’s not cheaper any more.

We can take the example of iPhone 5, which was recently released in India. The device follows a stiff route till it gets into the hands of users. There are shipping charges, import duties, margin for the importer, the new warranty charges, as its original warranty isn’t valid in the country of import. And in India there are three levels of distributors—the importers, who brings the goods into the country, then he sells it to super stockiest, like wholesaler, then wholesaler sells it to distributers, who in turn sells it to retailers, and finally retailer sells it to customers, each levels have their cuts in turn shooting up device prices.