"Android was getting too abused by low-cost handset developers; Android One will allow Google to enforce certain minimum standards," said an official with a major Indian device manufacturer, referring to Google's Android One, slated to be launched on Monday.
Android One aims to drive standardisation of low-cost handsets running on Android in the emerging economies. With this, will the smartphone prices in the country further drop?
Currently, the cheapest range of Android handsets from home-grown manufacturers such as Intex, Spice and Micromax starts from Rs 4,000. According to Sumanta Mukherjee, principal consultant at CyberMedia Research, smartphones constitute only 20-25 per cent of the market and the challenge is to persuade feature-phone buyers to buy smartphones.
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"If you target the feature phone-buying segment with a quality smartphone priced between Rs 3,000 and Rs 5,000, you can ride on this wave (smartphone) and capture the market," said Mukherjee.
While the devices will definitely help introduce first-time users to the world of smartphones, "The war will not be won around only price," said the official cited above. In countries such as Indonesia, the lower middle class is investing in handsets in the range of $200-300, since it's the only computing device they have and "user experience" is the key.
While the official might be right, there is no denying the fact that despite the global dominance of the smartphone market, newer operating systems like those from Mozilla Firefox and Tizen from Samsung (Google's biggest partner) could give it competition in the future. Spice and Intex have already launched smartphones bundled with Firefox, which are retailing at Rs 2,000. Intex sold 15,000 units of the Firefox phone in the first three days of the launch and is targeting 100,000 units this month, said Sanjay Kumar Kalirona, business head (mobile) at Intex Technologies.
Another official with a handset maker, who has closely worked with the partnership with Google said AndroidOne will help provide direct updates to the customers on its software and applications as well as send patches about any bugs. This is currently not possible in all the devices offering Android, which leads to a poor user experience in many cases.
With Google penetrating into the lower end of the smartphone spectrum, its other services will benefit, Mukherjee said. "Services like Google maps work on the geo data, generated through these phones. So, as they are more deeply entrenched, their analytics and algorithms cutting across services will run better," he added.
However, since Google will exercise very tight control over the devices, it could give little room to manufacturers to experiment and differentiate. "The kind of clout that Google has, manufacturers want to be on the same stage, but they will not be very happy with this." The first official cited above added that Android One would further intensify competition in the already-cluttered market.