With people back to their workplaces and education institutions starting physical classes with the subsiding of the Covid-19 pandemic, the imports of laptops and tablets have taken a beating in the current fiscal year. The government data shows the import of these portable computers has declined significantly in the first five months of FY 2022/23. As online classes and remote working became the new norm for students and office employees post-March 2020, imports of laptops and tablets surged exponentially in the last two fiscal years. However, the demand for such devices has declined this year. Data published by the Department of Customs (DoC) shows imports of laptops have shrunk by 59.72 percent while that of tablets by 87.66 percent in the first five months of the current fiscal year.

Importers say that decline in imports of laptops and tablets is basically due to various factors such as the resumption of physical workspace, rise in gray imports, and saturation of demand in the market.

As the Covid-19 pandemic confined most Nepalis to their homes, there was a huge demand for laptops and tablets in FY 2020/21 and FY 2021/22. Schools across the country were closed for most of 2020 and 2021 after the government imposed a lockdown in March 2020 to curb the spread of coronavirus. According to traders, another reason for the import boom was the sudden vanishing of ‘gray’ market products as all transport routes including flights were shut down. The annual data of DoC shows Nepal imported laptops worth Rs 11.42 billion and tablets worth Rs 643.52 million in FY 2021/22. The country imported 190,516 units of laptops and 23,117 units of tablets in the last fiscal year. In FY 2020/21, the country imported 139,447 units of laptops worth Rs 7.77 billion and 29,935 units of tablets worth Rs 639.01 million. The imports of laptops and tablets in FY 2019/20 stood at 2,995 units and 258 units respectively. The majority of laptops and tablets coming to Nepal are from China. In the first five months of FY 2022/23, Nepal imported 36,677 units of laptops from China. Such imports from China during the same period of FY 2021/22 stood at 105,971 units. Nepal imports laptops from 28 countries, as per DoC data.