Want an Android smartphone for around 100 bucks? Go to India, because that’s where the action is.
Market analysts at IDC said Google has introduced what it describes as the “first wave” of Android One devices in India in collaboration with local gizmo makers Spice, Karbonn and Micromax.
Google – now it’s a hardware company – has produced a reference design that makes it nice and easy to create devices using Mediatek MT6582 system on a chip (SoC) devices.
And Google isn’t letting it end there because it’s already teamed up major mobile firms Airtel and Reliance and pulled in Amazon too to give added value to the reference designs.
According to IDC, it won’t end there, because after capturing the Indian smartphone market it will also launch similar products in Indonesia and then Brazil.
IDC thinks Google is set to sell heaps of phones and “redefine” cheap smartphones with “good enough” specs.
OK – Samsung and Apple can battle it out at the high end and while there are plenty of Indian folk who can afford to lash out on these, there are an awful lot more folks who, quite simply, can’t.
Google hasn’t got a presence in the Chinese market, said IDC, but can make gazillions out of other major markets.
