are mobile phones elastic or inelastic ? why ? thank you
Elastic. A product is inelastic if it is a necessity in the given price range. For example, water is very much so a necessity, and given its relatively cheap price, it is an inelastic product.
To elaborate on the above answer, I think part of it really depends on the customer base you're examining. As a whole, the mobile phone market is pretty elastic - it's not a necessity and there are already a lot of phones out there, so if prices were to go up fewer people would buy new phones and fewer people would upgrade their existing phones (the very definition of elastic). On the other hand, for certain professions mobile phones are very necessary. On-call doctors, many upper-level businesspeople, anybody who *must* be reachable as a part of their work, they all will exhibit inelastic buying behavior. Whether the phone cost $100 or $1000, if they have to have it to do their job, they'll spend the money so they can continue to work.
In fact, mobile phones enter the category of goods which tend to have fairly elastic demand curves. It simply states that a sudden change in their price will lead to a consequent change it the quantity demanded.
