The import of cell phones in Lebanon decreased sharply in 2020, by 57.6 percent, according to “International Information”, and the suffering of phone stores is like that of the rest of Lebanon’s sectors, mainly caused by the high exchange rate of the dollar on the black market.

The owner of a “cell phone” store told  Sawt Beirut International correspondent Sarah Shehadeh, “Most of the customers are public sector employees, and private establishments have not raised their employees’ salaries, which affected the sale. The rate of phones being repaired compared for selling them, increased, the price of any spare part of a mobile is at least 10 Dollars. ”He added,“ with distance online education, the phone became a necessity, so some people had to buy phones which price do not exceed $ 200, and at a time when we got used to  high sales during the holidays or replacing a phone with another, we do not witness this  now, as people are trying to secure the basics, while the phone is a luxury.

Buying a smartphone has become a burden on the Lebanese, in light of the financial crisis that we are witnessing, only those who have dollars are capable of replacing  an old phone with a new, one of the citizens said, “I cannot buy a phone at the present time, there are priorities and the phone is a luxury,” while another said, “My salary One million and 300 thousand pounds, while the price of the phone reaches 5 million pounds, how much time it took to install it, and this is if the shop owner agreed to that!

In light of the wide spread of technology, will the Lebanese keep pace with development or will he return to the Stone Age?