Posted on Monday, February 24 2014 @ 10:54 CET by Thomas De Maesschalck
EE Times
reports surprisingly cheap smartphones with Firefox OS will be presented at this week's Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona. Leading Chinese mobile chip supplier Spreadtrum Communications teamed up with Mozilla to create Firefox OS smartphones that will cost just $25 in retail stores.
The first-generation Firefox OS smartphones, which were launched last year by companies such as Alcatel, ZTE, and LG, have been made available primarily through operator channels. Carriers like Telefonica have deployed Firefox OS smartphones, but many analysts see little impact so far on the smartphone market. Scott Bicheno, senior analyst at Strategy Analytics, told us Firefox OS handsets make up "less than 1% of total global smartphone shipments."
The Spreadtrum/Mozilla strategy for $25 smartphones is to change that narrative. Diana Jovin, vice president of corporate strategy at Spreadtrum, told us the devices will be "sold on the open market" and will target "first-time smartphone users."
