Is it possible to get a Smartphone for as little as $25? No, it was not until Mozilla declared to sell smartphones for just $25 in India and Indonesia. The company’s general manager for China said that in the next few months it will begin selling smartphones in India and Indonesia, primarily in South and Southeast Asia.
The Mozilla has been talking about its Firefox mobile operating system for inexpensive smartphones for quite some time. The US based Firefox has even collaborated with four handset makers and five wireless carriers to offer smartphones powered by Firefox in Europe and Latin America.
However, the prices of these smatphones are more than US$60, which is again too expensive for most of the customers in India and other Southeast Asian countries. Gong Li, Mozilla Chief Operating Officer, said in an Interview, “In many countries even a single U.S dollar means a lot of money to consumers and therefore it’s really difficult to sell smartphones that cost more than $50.”
The company has now decided to collaborate with a Chinese chip maker Spreadtrum Communications Inc. to introduce a Smartphone that is both user-friendly and reasonable. The initial price of the phone will be $25 and it is going to attract customers who are looking forward to a cheap smartphones in place of feature phones.
Gong further added, “With this price and larger distribution network, Mozilla expects that the shipment of Firefox-enabled smartphones crosses 10 million units in the coming 12 months. However, it may face some challenge as the low-cost phones are common in China and other rising markets. Also, the Firefox OS is not as powerful as Android and iOS, therefore the quality of apps will not be as good as other expensive handsets.
The makers of the handset reveal that Mozilla is in talks with Chinese carriers to launch Mozilla-powered smartphone, but the software company is yet to expand its business in World’s largest mobile market. According to Strategy Analytics Neil Mawston, the Firefox OS is expected to capture 1% share on global smartphone OS market when it comes to shipment this year and it can increase up to 3 % by 2018.
