Spice And Intex To Sell Mozilla's Low-Cost Firefox Smartphones In India | TechTree.com

Spice And Intex To Sell Mozilla's Low-Cost Firefox Smartphones In India

Many expect the Firefox OS-powered devices from Intex and Spice to cost just $25 (Rs 1,500).

 

Mozilla has tied up with Indian smartphone manufacturers Intex and Spice to bring its low-cost Firefox OS phones to the Indian market. In a bid to break the dominance of Android powered handsets in entry-level smartphone market, the Firefox-powered phones are expected to be as cheap as $25 (Rs 1,500).

"Intex is excited to announce its association with Mozilla which will enable us to develop unparalleled smart devices on the latest Firefox OS platform,” said Sanjay Kumar Kalirona, Business Head at Intex, in a Times of India report.

The Indian company believes that the platform will give them the edge in letting buyers of feature phones to upgrade to smart devices, at no added expense. Even Spice acknowledged its newly formed partnership with Mozilla and iterated that the devices born out of the venture will be affordable and for the mass market.

“These phones will be affordably priced to ensure everyone can enjoy and experience the power of the Firefox OS phone," said Dilip Modi, Co Founder and CEO of Spice Mobile.

Currently the cheapest Firefox OS-powered mobile device cost about $60 (Rs 3,500), but according to a recent report in the Wall Street Journal, Mozilla is planning to lower that to about $25. The report cites Mozilla's CEO, Gong Li as saying Firefox smartphones priced above $60 are 'still too expensive for most consumers in India.'

Mozilla is currently working with Chinese chipmaker Spreadtrum Communications to create a low-cost chipset that will enable OEM's to manufacture smartphones as cheap as $25. It however isn't know if the two Indian manufacturers will use the hardware in question in the planned devices.

“With a $25 price tag, there is no price gap between a smartphone and a feature phone. This attractive price point would help motivate feature phone users to switch to smartphones," added Gong Li, in the WSJ report.


TAGS: Firefox OS, Intex, Spice, Mozilla, low-cost smartphone, Mobile Phones

 
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