Andre Yoskowitz
12 Jun 2014 12:17
Mozilla has confirmed that the company's $25 Firefox OS-powered phones will be available in at least India and Indonesia later this year.
So far, Mozilla has partnered with four OEMs and five carriers to launch Firefox phones in Latin America and some nations in Europe, but the phones have not been as cheap as $25. Most retail for between $75 and $100, still cheap by smartphone standards, but not cheap enough to attract consumers that will otherwise purchase an Android or Windows Phone device if given the choice or will stick with feature phones.
Especially in emerging markets like India, $75 is too expensive, in general, and hundreds of millions of citizens still have feature phones. Mozilla Chief Operating Officer Gong Li notes: "One U.S. dollar means a lot of things to consumers in emerging countries. It's difficult to sell smartphones that cost more than US$50 in those markets."
The new $25 handsets are built in collaboration with Chinese chip maker Speadtrum Communications. "With a $25 price tag, there is no price gap between a smartphone and a feature phone," Mr. Gong said. "This attractive price point would help motivate feature-phone users to switch to smartphones."
Instead of relying on carriers for promotion and sales, Mozilla is also trying to expand partnerships to include retailers and local handset makers in India and Indonesia. The company hopes to sell over 10 million handsets in the next 12 months.
Source:
WSJ