According to Iran Customs, the value of imported cellular handset into the country amounted to 342 million U.S. dollars in the past 10 months.
It seems that despite the criticisms, the “mobile phones registry scheme” in Iran has been quite a success. Previously most of the mobile phones in Iran were smuggled into the country until the government disrupted the market by requiring all mobile phones to be registered in a national database. Any new mobile device that was imported into the country after the implementation of the registry scheme is required to pay a specific tariff to Iran Customs.
According to Tasnim, in the first 10 months of the current Persian year (March 2017), imported cellular handset amounts to 342 million dollars, while during the same period in the past year this value was 175 million dollars, which shows a 95 percent increase.
The scheme was kicked off with four American mobile brands (iPhone, Motorola, Blackberry and Google Pixel) in the first phase, which make up to 11 percent of the total volume of the financial transactions in this sector. However these mobile brands have 40 percent of the mobile phone market turnover in the country.
