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Google's relaunching Android One phones to hit $50 'sweet spot'
Google is rebooting its much-hyped Android One project that's supposed to bring low-priced smartphones to emerging markets. The company's managing director in India, Rajan Anandan, told the Financial Times that the program has "not delivered to expectations," due to shortages of the devices. In addition, they have cost as much as $100, limiting their appeal in the price-sensitive region. Of course, Google's ultimate goal is to increase its search business in huge emerging markets by getting connected devices into consumers' hands. It's now going to focus on hitting the pricing "sweet spot" in India -- between $30 and $50.
Opera uses free apps to coax emerging nations toward the internet
Mobile data is pricier in developing regions than in the west, a paradox that has held back mobile internet adoption on most of the planet. To help, Opera has unveiled App Pass, a service that lets smartphone users download and use apps without paying for data. It comes as part of Opera Max, an Android app that cuts mobile data usage by compressing it up to 50 percent. App Pass is targeted at emerging markets, and will let operators offer "free, sponsored or low-cost access to select apps." Users can then download and use them without paying for data over the duration of the pass.
Google allegedly working on its own WhatsApp competitor
Google introduced its Android One program earlier this year, which focuses on building budget-friendly, solid quality smartphones for the developing world. Back then, the search giant made it pretty clear that, with help from manufacturers, it wanted to create a big splash in emerging markets -- such as India, where the first Android One devices were revealed last month. But a rumor suggests Google's next step is to build what it couldn't buy when it lost out on messaging king WhatsApp to Facebook. The Economic Times, a trusted Indian news outlet, is now claiming the company from Mountain View has started working on a messaging app of its own that will head to emerging markets first, before potentially launching elsewhere.
Samsung may soon launch Tizen phones in Russia and India
Remember the Tizen operating system? It's not a household name, but it did make an appearance on the second wave of Samsung Galaxy Gear devices. We're still waiting for a full-fledged phone running the open-source OS, though, and we may just see one this year. According to sources who spoke with the Wall Street Journal, Samsung will launch a Tizen handset in Russia "in the coming weeks," and a Tizen device will reach India soon after. While that's about it in terms of details, one thing is clear: Samsung will look outside the US and Europe to get the fledgling operating system off the ground and into phones.
Nintendo plans to approach emerging markets with new hardware
Rather than releasing the Wii U, 3DS or cheaper versions thereof, Nintendo plans to bring new hardware to emerging markets such as China starting next year. Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata told Reuters the systems will be targeted at consumers with less gaming experience and income, compared to the company's typical audience in developed markets. "We want to make new things, with new thinking rather than a cheaper version of what we currently have," Iwata said, speaking to Bloomberg. "The product and price balance must be made from scratch." Like Sony and Microsoft, Nintendo has a history of releasing cheaper variations of existing systems, such as the Wii Mini and 2DS. It's unclear how far Nintendo's market-specific devices will veer from existing hardware, but going by today's financial briefing, we'll learn how the company plans to "change our approach to new markets" later this year. The news follows China lifting its 14-year ban on foreign games consoles, opening a huge market for the platform holders to explore. Microsoft stepped up to the plate last week and announced it's bringing the Xbox One to the nation this September. [Image: Nintendo]
Samsung's slumping sales suggest China is the next mobile battlefield
Samsung had a rough day yesterday. Its earnings report indicated the company experienced the first posted drop in profit in two years (a mere $7.8 billion, compared to $8.27 billion in the same quarter last year), thanks to a strong Korean won, a special one-off bonus payment to employees and heavy holiday marketing costs. Given its increased year-over-year profits and sales this may not seem so bad, but there is a growing concern that the company has a difficult year ahead, especially for smartphone sales. The company expects slowing sales in the first quarter of 2014 for its smartphones and tablets, thanks to "seasonality." This means fewer people are buying mobile devices -- as a new Galaxy flagship approaches, many people put off their phone purchase until it comes out. But the company also indicated that the mobile battlefield is only going to get fiercer over the next year, as developed markets are reaching saturation. Now, the war is shifting to developing markets where more people are becoming smartphone and tablet owners for the first time.
Nokia's dumbphones face an uncertain future at Microsoft
"Year-on-year decline." Those are words that no company looks forward to publishing in its earnings reports, but unfortunately we've seen them printed more often than not on Nokia's quarterly statements. Though there have been a few ups and downs, struggling profits and sales have been a general concern for a long time, and unfortunately this quarter's earnings report did little to soothe our worries; Nokia sold 600,000 fewer Lumias than the previous quarter. Now that Microsoft's acquisition of Nokia's devices and services division is nearly complete, much of our focus has turned to how the merger will affect the Lumia lineup of Windows Phones. An even bigger mystery at the moment, however, is what Microsoft will choose to do with the rest of Nokia's phones -- namely, the Mobile Phone division, which consists of the company's basic featurephones and the Asha lineup of advanced featurephones, none of which run Windows Phone. Just after Microsoft announced its intent to acquire the phone maker, Nokia insisted that the division wasn't going anywhere; it has "substantial global reach ... and a strong customer base," but in emerging markets like India and China, it faces intense competition from fully functional smartphone platforms for a similar cost. Even worse, as we learned in yesterday's report, sales from this division were flat -- and as the competition gets heavier, it's going to get worse, not better. Is it worth it for Microsoft to try saving a lineup of handsets that don't feature Windows Phone OS? Or does it make more sense to push lower-end Lumia devices to cater to the next billion smartphone users?
Apple's iPhone 5c isn't the low-cost phone you've been waiting for
The iPhone 5s was expected. The iPhone 5c, on the other hand, was merely rumored. Now that Apple has taken the wraps off of two new iPhone products, it's the newest range that strikes us as the most curious. For months, pundits have wondered if and when Apple would attack two obvious markets: the large-screen market -- which Samsung is lapping up in supreme fashion at the moment -- and developing markets. The iPhone 5c addresses neither of those, which begs the question: who exactly is Apple targeting?
iPhone sales in India start to fall
While iPhone sales got off to a great start when the device was released in India this past November sales have cooled in the last few months. A new report from the Times of India shows that in the last quarter of 2012 Apple sold 230,000 iPhones in the country; by the end of the first quarter of 2013 that number had dropped to 120,000. Apple's market share in the country has fallen from 4.7 percent to 2.1 percent. This sales drop comes despite Apple's increased advertising and promotions in the region, including discounts and monthly payment plans. Analysts point to the lack of new Apple products hitting the shelves as the reason keeping the company from sustaining their initial buzz. Meanwhile Samsung, Apple's main rival, has met each discount and sale with their own incentives. It will be interesting to see if the release of iOS 7 or the possible announcement of new hardware later in the year will help Apple regain the marketshare they've lost in the last year. India is currently the third largest cellphone market in the world.
BlackBerry Q5: a QWERTY handset built for emerging markets
This morning at BlackBerry Live in Orlando, Thorsten Heins kicked off the company's major annual event with a brief mention of the latest BB10 device, the Q5. It's a handset Heins is convinced will be a "big hit" for its target audience. The portrait QWERTY handset follows in the footsteps of the recently unleashed Q10, merging a 3.1-inch touch screen with hardware keyboard, but has a more specific bent: it's made for emerging markets. Due to be launched in a trio of colors (i.e., black, red, white and pink), the Q5 is being positioned as a low-end device that combines affordability, BB's signature physical keyboard and, of course, BB10. It's due to rollout this July in Latin America, Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia. As for pricing, the company's remaining mum on that end, but with summer fast approaching, we should know soon enough.
Apple faces challenges in China and Brazil
While Apple's success in established markets around the world is taken for granted, the company is having a harder time gaining a solid foothold in two large and growing smartphone markets -- China and Brazil. As GigaOM's Erica Ogg notes in a recent post, a Chinese manufacturer and Brazilian mobile carrier are demonstrating that Apple may need to tweak its model for success in emerging markets. In China, handset maker Xiaomi is following the Apple plan for success quite well. It designs the hardware, uses NVIDIA mobile chipsets and Samsung memory, and lets Foxconn assemble the hardware. Also like Apple, the company waits about a year between introducing new models. Xiaomi sold 7.2 million smartphones in China in 2012 and has plans to sell double that amount in 2013. By building its smartphone on Android, designing all of the major apps in-house and doing no marketing except on "China's Twitter" Sina Weibo, Xiaomi can charge much less for a smartphone with an excellent user experience. In a market where 70 percent of all smartphones are unlocked and unsubsidized, that lower initial price makes a big difference to users. Brazil is a totally different matter. Android smartphones and iPhones only make up about 20 percent of the market, since most are manufactured overseas and various taxes make an iPhone close to 30 times more expensive in Brazil than in the US. Fabricio Bloiso Rocha, CEO of Brazilian carrier Movile, thinks that the iPhone has "the best UX" and is the "best product overall." However, he also mentioned that "for Latin America, to invest there, you have to go Android because price is very important." That's an important factor for Apple to consider when thinking about whether or not to produce a lower-priced iPhone for emerging markets.
Hands-on with Nokia's Asha 308 and 309 (video)
They're not the most compelling of devices, but for smartphone first timers, they should do just fine. Officially announced today, Nokia's updating the Asha Touch line with the 308 and 309 -- two new members of the Series 40 family that've moved past the feature phone designation and into smartphone territory. Priced at an affordable $99 (off-contract), this dual- and single-SIM pair are near identical with 3-inch WQVGA displays, 2GB of microSD storage (expandable to 32GB) and a 1,110mAh battery. We just happened to be onsite at the company's HQ in Espoo for the reveal of the diminutive devices, so follow on after the break for our first impressions.
Nokia begins construction on Vietnamese production facility
In keeping with Elop's focus on Asia-based production, Nokia's just broken ground on a new manufacturing facility in Vietnam. The site, located in the country's Bac Ninh province, spans over 17 hectacres and is slated to begin production of mobile devices when it's completed in early 2013. The move marks a shift in strategy for the Finnish company, eyeing unmet demand for smartphones in the region, an area it's deemed a "high growth [economy]." In addition to supplying that emerging market with its portfolio of products, the new plant will also help to create job opportunities for locals -- a welcome turn of fortune given Espoo's recent track record of worldwide layoffs. You can check out the presser below for additional bits surrounding its newly minted Vietnamese arm.
Nokia's extreme dieting continues as it kills off Nokia Money
If you thought Nokia had finished its program of slimming down, think again. The axe is being wielded on Nokia Money as the company seeks to reinvent itself as a lean'n'mean mobile player. The mobile payments and cash management service was launched in India late last year, but both complex financial regulations and the fact it's outside of Nokia's core business prompted its early closure. Instead, it'll concentrate its efforts on its smartphones designed for emerging markets like the Asha: with the aim of connecting the "next billion" people to the internet.
Nokia Lumia 610 hands-on (video)
Nokia's stand at Mobile World Congress is more of a city than a dingy old booth -- it's absolutely massive, and full of Lumias and PureViews and Ashas (oh my!). As we continue to dissect the entire thing, our adventure has taken us to the Lumia 610. This particular handset is a bit of an anomaly in the mobile world: it's getting a lot of attention not because it's an amazingly powerful and highly specced device, but rather because it's considered a low-ender. It's not too often that this kind of thing happens, considering we often treat budget phones as non-influential, but we envision a device like the Lumia 610 having a dramatic impact on the scope of Windows Phone in global market share and public exposure.Why could such a simple smartphone make waves at a show crowded with star-studded beauties like Nokia's own 808 PureView or the HTC One X? Because it's among the first to feature Microsoft's latest Windows Phone build. Contrary to our expectations coming into the show, it's not being referred to as Tango -- something that perplexed us during our liveblog of Nokia's event this morning -- but rather a minor refresh that will reach out to every Windows Phone. The update, still considered part of Windows Phone 7.5 (Mango), opens the door for devices running on 256MB of RAM and offers a few other goodies, such as allowing ringtones, videos, audio files and multiple JPEGs on one MMS. The update will also bring compatibility to Chinese mobile operators and plenty more regional availability. That's a major reason why the Lumia 610 is getting so much attention -- it may be the first Windows Phone experience for several regions that don't already have the OS.It may be obvious that the specs are nothing to write home about. Quite opposite, in fact. But that's not what Nokia's gunning for with the 610, is it? Nay, this one is ever so humble, with its 800MHz Snapdragon S1 CPU, 5MP rear AF camera with LED flash, 3.7-inch WVGA TFT display, 1,300mAh battery and quad-band GSM / EDGE / WCDMA. The build is definitely inexpensive plastic, with chrome edges and a soft-touch back. In other words, keep a firm grip on it at all times. All in all, it feels rather comfortable to hold, though. Its overall performance is precisely on par with the intended price range here. But don't just read our words about the phone -- behold with your own eyes the Lumia 610 with the help of our photos and videos below.
Microsoft lowers hardware requirements, opens Marketplace to 23 more countries
If there was a theme for today's Nokia keynote, and, by extension, Microsoft's plans for Windows Phone, it's that the OS is being targeted toward lower-spec phones worldwide. The SDK update that'll soon roll out to developers will include an emulator for developers to ensure their apps work on devices like the Lumia 610 that only has 256MB RAM. The company's promising that nearly all apps will work on the cheaper hardware, promising that fragmentation will be kept to a minimum. Any app that runs poorly on the slimmer hardware will be flagged as unsuitable in the Marketplace. Speaking of which, Microsoft has announced it'll be rolling it out to a further 23 countries shortly including China, the UAE and much of Eastern Europe -- increasing the total market reach by up to 60 percent.
Genesi i.MX 53 netbooks, nettops to take Freescale machines deeper into the bargain basement
Back in March, Genesi announced its plans to target emerging markets by dropping the price of its Efika MX Smartbook and Smarttop machines. Those devices packed i.MX 51 CPUs, and post-cut price tags of $199 and $129, respectively. Now the San Antonio-based outfit is hinting at any even bigger price break for the developing world with the introduction of its i.MX 53 netbook PCB. According to a Genesi rep at the Freescale Technology Forum, the board, which is significantly smaller than its predecessor, is "as cheap as we can possibly make it," and will likely power even more cost efficient Genesi computers in the near future. No word on just how low Genesi is willing to go, but it's shooting for an i.MX 53 debut sometime this summer. If cheap is your thing, check out the PCB in all its glory after the break.
Genesi reduces price of Efika MX Smartbook, Smarttop, says it's for greater good
Back in September, we reported on the absurdly overpriced Efika MX Smartbook -- a little computer sporting a 10-inch display and a $349 price tag -- and it looks like somebody took note. The folks over at Genesi have reduced the price of their entire line of Efika MX products, dropping the aforementioned Smartbook to $199 and its desktop companion, the Smarttop, to $129. Of course, they did so with a bit of marketing flair, claiming the deal would open "the door even more for billions of people and businesses in emerging markets to affordable state-of-the-art computing and Internet access." Now, we're not calling anyone out here, but we're guessing we weren't the only ones who thought the Smartbook was just a tad too pricey. Full PR after the jump.
Nokia CEO: cheap Windows Phones can come 'very quickly'
We'd raised our own concerns in interviews with both Stephen Elop and Microsoft's Aaron Woodman in the past week that Nokia could have difficulty pushing the Windows Phone platform low enough to fill the holes left by Symbian's departure in the bottom rungs of the market, but the Nokia CEO is making it very clear that he thinks that won't be a problem. In a talk with Finnish journalists on Friday, Elop said that it has become "convinced" that it can hit "a very low price point" and do it "very quickly," a strategy that will be key to converting significant swaths of Symbian market share into Windows Phone market share without losing it to other manufacturers or platforms. Of course, something tells us the leaked design concept (pictured right) doesn't represent the types of hardware Nokia has in mind for those low price points -- but no single device or market segment is going to take Espoo to the promised land here.
Does Peek's future lay in low-powered feature phones, emerging markets?
The overriding philosophy at Peek is "keep it simple," and we have to agree that as these things go, this is a pretty sound principle (even if we don't necessarily have much use for dedicated Twitter hardware). If the big payoff for the company isn't in the gadget-addicted states, it's been a good start: the company has sold some 50,000 units in two years while developing the back-end technology that CEO Amol Sarva believes can supply cheap, low-powered feature phones and other devices for emerging markets -- devices that could retail for as little as $50. "This is a huge opportunity for us," Sarva told GigaOm. "We've built technology that no one cared about but now we're suddenly being approached by guys who have the hardware that want to make it smart." And if that doesn't pan out, we have a suggestion: FourPeek, the dedicated Foursquare device.
