Indian company Ringing Bells is making waves in the tech industry with its latest product, the ridiculously cheap ‘Freedom 251’ smartphone priced at an unbelievable 251 rupees ($3.67).

Despite the phone’s low price, the company is promising a host of swanky features like 8GB storage, 8MP and 3.2MP primary and secondary cameras, pattern lock with face detection, 5-inch touch screen, 1080p video support, bluetooth, and of course, 3G support. “We will be the first Indian company to offer an incredible smartphone at a highly affordable price,” the Ringing Bells website states, adding that the phone will work on a “no-frills” platform that’s a “minimalistic and lightweight take on the Android 5.1 Lollipop operating system.”

According to a Ringing Bells spokesperson, the company believes that the phone – strongly resembling Apple’s iPhone 4 – will “bring a revolution” in the industry. While the initial promise was to price the phone under 500 rupees ($7.3), the actual cost was revealed at the launch event last Wednesday, creating a global stir. The high profile event conducted in Delhi was attended by members of the Indian Parliament and other state level leaders. The website went live for pre-orders the next day, but with 600,000 hits per second their website crashed within a few hours and they were forced to close bookings. The company later revealed that they received 37 million orders on Day 1 and 24.7 million on Day 2. They are now promising to deliver the devices to all their customers within four months.

“We are humbled and extremely grateful for your overwhelming response and trust,” they said, in a statement announcing the closing of pre-orders. “Respectfully, this is to advise that the response far exceeds the number that we had expected and therefore, we are now closing the invitation to bookings in this phase 1. We appreciate and acknowledge that we may not have been able to meet the needs of all, but will definitely look forward to serving you again in the next phase.”

Critics, of course, are highly skeptical of the company’s promises. Many of them argue that the cost of the components alone would be far higher than the promised retail price. That’s not including production, distribution, and marketing. The Indian Cellular Association has written to India’s telecom minister, Ravi Shankar Prasad, asking him to dig deeper into the matter and complaining that it is impossible to price a 3G phone below 2,700 rupees in India. The excise and income tax departments are also reportedly investigating the company’s finances.

Credit: Oddity Central.