Google has launched a new initiative to help consumers get a hand on the smartphones, making the smartphones affordable and within the reach of a middle class consumer. The vice president of Google, Mr. Sundar Pichai named it as Android One. During the Google I/O 2014 event, Mr. Pichai discussed the widespread of mobiles in developing countries. The mobile market is huge and it helps users to connect with each other but only 10 percent of those users have a smartphone.
— Update —
We all have heard about Google’s Android One project that was announced in the I/O conference that was held few days back. The aim of the project was to create low cost Android Smart phones and so it partnered with three Indian smartphone makers, Karbonn, Micromax and Spice, now two more Indian handset makers have been added to this project Viz; Celkon and Intex.
Few reports also claim that even HTC wants join this project in order to improve its dropping sales in the market. Under this project smart phones will be made under $100 and these device will run standardized Android version for faster updates.
Update 2: 17th July 2014 –
$100 to be spent for marketing: Google has plans to spend Rs 100 crore in marketing Android One, according to reports from media. India has the second largest population in the Words and Google is set to attract the Indian population with its marketing and services. Micromax and Karbonn have 25 % shipment of its devices in India while Samsung leads the table with 35 % of share. This is the right time for Google and it will most probably launch is first budget Smart phone in the eve of Diwali later this year in October.
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The initiative will be targeting the brands which can produce low-cost smartphones, in markets where there is a scope for budget Android phones to be sold more, especially for the reason that there are rural areas where the smartphones haven’t been much sold. This will help in increasing Android’s market share even further. The plan to build affordable smartphones, is by joining both hardware and software in a way that both do not cost much in the end.
Companies partnering with Google for Android One: The program will be starting from India first, and in India, three smartphone brands, i.e. Micromax, Karbonn and Spice have partnered with Google to bring Android One into the market, and this could be joined by the other companies in future.
Chipsets to be used in Android One: As per the latest rumors, Google is going to partner with Mediatek, the second largest chipset manufacturer to produce these sub-$100 smartphones. It is also being said that Google would be sending the latest software to Mediatek, and the latter would then prepare the chipsets which are compatible to run the devices with that particular software. Most probably, it is the MediaTek MT6575 SoC going to be used in the first phone from Micromax, which was showed at the Google I/O event.
The Android One program intends to give some specific features to the devices, and the smartphone showcased in Google I/O was one from Micromax, and it had a 4.5 inch display, a Dual-SIM card slot, Micro SD card slot and FM Radio. The price of these devices will be starting below $100. On the software front, these devices will be getting the access from Google in terms of app support, Android OS updates and the devices will be getting the updates frequently, just like in Nexus devices.
For the software, Mr. Pichai has promised that Google would take care of the app bloatware and Google Play Auto Installs in which the user has a choice, whether to have pre-installed apps or not. Google is also making partnership deals with the different network providers to offer affordable plans which will go with the Android One series of smartphones. The company hasn’t revealed the names of the network providers in India.
The Android One will be running the Stock ROM which has the vanilla UI layered over it, which is similar to Google Nexus devices, which too have the stock ROM and they receive the updates automatically. After this announcement by Google, now the market will see a competition in which the price will be a deciding factor. This program is much needed as low end smartphone needs a support in terms of Android updates, and the UI experience, which although the companies try to make better with their own interface but the performance usually gets a hit, alongside storage which gets less because of the bloatware installed by them.
Android One will be giving a challenge to all those companies who are launching the smartphones above $200 mark, and it would be exciting to see in which direction this program goes. Overall, this a nice move by the Google to combine the entire leading mobile manufactures to one platform where they can give something to low-end market for the smart phones.
