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$33 Firefox Phone Launched In India

Posted by samzenpus on from the cheaper-by-the-dozen dept.

davidshenba writes Intex and Mozilla have launched Cloud FX, a smartphone powered by Mozilla's Firefox OS. The phone has a 1 GHz processor, 2 Megapixel camera, dual SIM, 3.5 inch capacitive touchscreen. Though the phone has limited features, initial reviews say that the build quality is good for the price range. With a price tag of $33 (2000 INR), and local languages support the new Firefox phone is hitting the Indian market of nearly 1 billion mobile users.

7 of 83 comments (clear)

  1. 33 Bucks?!? by SternisheFan · · Score: 4, Informative

    If I didn't already have a $300 smartphone, I'd snap one of these up in a heartbeat. It does make and receive phone calls, right? Amazing...

  2. 1 Billion Mobile Users? by sdguero · · Score: 5, Informative

    Umm... I guess this assuming that 80% of the people in India are smart phone users. That last i heard, smart phone usage in the USA was around 65%.

    The average income in India is $1,500 USD/year vs the USA where it is $50,000 USD/year (roughly 33 times higher). $33 dollars doesn't sound like much to people in the USA, but that is 2.2% of the average Indian person's annual salary. That 2.2% number would be around $1100 outlay for the average American worker.

    Perspective is everything when you try compare the consumer market between countries like the USA and India.

    1. Re:1 Billion Mobile Users? by narcc · · Score: 4, Insightful

      But it's significantly less than competing smartphone alternatives in that market. The price is even lower than many feature phones (most, if you only count dual-sim models) at just Rs 2000.

      It's still a big investment, sure, but you're getting a LOT more bang for your rupees.

      --
      Required reading for internet skeptics
    2. Re:1 Billion Mobile Users? by Charliemopps · · Score: 4, Interesting

      It's 1 billion mobile users, not smartphone users. When I was in Africa, everyone had a feature phone... everyone. You could buy them at Kiosks for less than $10, and phone cards to fill them with minutes. A $300 phone would be completely insane there... but a $33 phone? Yea, they'd have to save up but that's doable. Especially when a lot of people I ran into were using the feature phone like a desktop... running entire businesses off the things.

    3. Re:1 Billion Mobile Users? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      Ok ... Indian here. 2000 rs is very very affordable to the average urban Indian. The average day laborer in South India gets ~500 rs / day if unskilled, and ~750 rs if skilled. That is about $10 - 12 /day. They already spend between 2000 and 5000 rs on the phones today. Even though this is a substantial amount, most people still go ahead with the purchase because it is really a one time cost. On most networks incoming calls are free and outgoing is about 1rs/ minute or lower. The rental plans are about 100rs / month ... this affordability is the reason for huge adoption of mobile phones in the last few years.

      Whether this particular phone would be a hit is debatable thought ... it has to compete against a lot of android-based makes and models in the same price range that exist today.

    4. Re:1 Billion Mobile Users? by jma05 · · Score: 5, Informative

      > Some villages only have one cell phone that everyone shares

      You don't seem to be talking from experience and seem to be simply conjecturing. I am in India. I have never heard of any village sharing just one cell phone. It is not even plausible. Now, it used to be, several decades ago, that there were just a handful of landlines per village. But a cell tower will not be setup unless the provider is sure that there is demand for enough to make an economic case. And there always is. Mobile phones are not expensive (but not cheaper than the cheap options in US). Mobile plans are however incredibly cheap compared to US. I know poor ($13 rent for a family of 4) families in India who have multiple mobile phones, one per working adult.

      > So think of it as each person in India putting out $1100 for their phone

      Poor people are not buying smartphones yet (its the lower middle class and up that is driving smart phones now). They still buy Nokia dumb phones and are now beginning to shift to cheap Android phones at $100. Firefox Phone helps by further lowering that barrier of entry. The minimum monthly talk refill plan I know is 30 *cents*... very cheap. You may not get many outgoing minutes, but you don't get charged for incoming calls, unlike US. So everyone in India who needs one, can afford a mobile phone plan.

      $1100 for a phone is very expensive in India. I know several people who have them, but they are all rich. And it is often a status symbol rather than for an actual need.

      > which they use in lieu of land line, TV and computer

      No one in India uses a smart phone in lieu of a TV. Having cable TV (60-80 channels) in India is very cheap ($3 per month in poor neighborhoods). Indian mobile data plans start very cheap ($2) but are not robust enough to be used for routine video consumption yet. They won't be replacing TV anytime soon. Anyone who owns a $1100 mobile phone already has a pricey HDTV.

      Mobile phones are also not replacing computers yet since most of the phone users, unlike US, were not computer users to begin with. People here use cheap service stations nearby, to pay bills online, where the operator sits in front of an online PC, accepts cash and pays bills for a few cents of service charge. This is much simpler for most people than using data plans and mobile web apps, for now. Around here (a small town), there is such a tiny store for every neighborhood and they provide small jobs that serve populace that is not yet computer savvy enough.

  3. Re:VS a top of the line 3 year old phone... by Em+Adespoton · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Try to sell the Galaxy Nexus across India in volume and maybe you can tell us the answer :)