Tech Budget 2022 expectations: Will smartphones become expensive? What about 5G?

Tech Budget 2022 expectations: Here’s what we expect from today’s Union Budget revelations for 2022-23.

Tech Budget 2022 expectations" Smartphone prices could continue to remain the same, given that India is somehow managing to keep up despite the pandemic effects. (Amritanshu Mukherjee/HT Tech)

Tech Budget 2022 expectations: In a few hours from now, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will unveil what is likely to dictate our finances for the fiscal year 2022-23. The Union Budget 2022 will be live in a few hours and as always, the technology sector is expected to get some attention. The industry is seeking reforms and tax benefits for a long term in a bid to sustain growth, considering the COVID-19 induced financial issues.

While we are in as much darkness as you when it comes to knowing what lays in store for us, we have certain expectations from the Budget 2022 for the technology industry. These are mostly developments based on recent situations and events, wherein the government could do its bid to boost income and other business aspects.

Tech Budget 2022: Our expectations

-5G could be a big topic for the Budget 2022. With the entire cellphone industry hinting at a airwaves auction in 2022, the government could be looking to implement new financial norms so as to make it more popular among people.

-Smartphone prices could continue to remain the same, given that India is somehow managing to keep up despite the pandemic effects. However, we expect the budget to reform the taxes on expensive phones, given that we have seen a lot of demand for smartphones under ₹50,000 in 2021.

-The Budget 2022 could also do something about the chip shortage situation. In order to secure a steady supply of semiconductor chips for our market, the government could play around with the taxes on component prices to force manufacturers to adopt more of the “Make in India” initiative. This could also help with the looming unemployment situation.

-With an increased demand for WFH gadgets such as laptops and wearables, the Budget 2022 could also consider tweaking the taxes.

-There could also be something on Cryptocurrency, given its massive discussion throughout the year.

Here are some expectations from industry experts for the Union Budget 2022 in technology.

The Budget 2022 could also do something about the chip shortage situation. (Pixabay)

The Budget 2022 could also do something about the chip shortage situation. (Pixabay)

“It will be great to see the Union Budget allocate funds toward incentivizing the use of emerging deep technologies like artificial intelligence, intelligent automation, blockchain, augmented / virtual reality etc., among businesses,” says Puneet Gupta, Managing Director and Vice President, NetApp India.

“Reduction on import tariff is something we are expecting, this will help us compete with countries like China, Mexico, Thailand and more. In the last two years, the PLI schemes have provided momentum to domestic and international investments, but so the investment from the government side for infrastructure building will boost the ‘Make in India' movement. We have to integrate India into the global supply chain scenario, to achieve that tariffs should be equal or less than competitive markets,” says Vijay Kumar Mikkilineni, Head of marketing, TCL India.

“Over the last few years, we have seen exponential growth in cyberattacks. The ongoing pandemic and work from anywhere models have further increased the attack landscape for cybercriminals. In addition to this, organizations are facing cybersecurity resource crunch and stringent budgets. Our expectation from the Union Budget is on two aspects: cybersecurity skill gap and cybersecurity awareness. We are hopeful of the Government increasing spends on cybersecurity awareness and training initiatives to empower cybersecurity resources. Eventually, this focus will help to create employment as well as good defense against cybercriminals,” says Sunil Sharma, Managing Director Sales for Sophos India & SAARC.