Asia Bizz: Sunil Mittal, the chairman and Group CEO of Bharti Enterprises, said at the World Mobile Congress this week that he wants the prices of the smartphones to drop to nearly $50 levels, which according to Indian currency translates to Rs. 2,500.
At present, the price of smartphones in India range from at least Rs. 5,000 to Rs. 35,000 and upwards, and the rates desired by Mittal are half of the current price. Moreover, mobile phones are the products that have all the potential in terms of pricing.
But in such a case, the question arises wheter a cheaper smartphone can provide an efficient operating system, good apps and email facilities. The answer lies in this – there are processor manufacturers like Qualcomm and MediaTek who provide efficient processors at lower costs.
In the manufacturing of a smartphone, it is the processor and the LCD display which make the bulk of a smartphone cost. The Chief Marketing officer at Lava said that once the chipset costs come down, everything else will follow. This is not possible overnight, but is expected sooner than most can think.
In India, Nokia had launched its first Symbian smartphone at Rs 36,000. While in 2012, Spice Mobility slashed the prices of its Android Froyo based Mi-270 smartphone to Rs 3,399, which set a new benchmark in terms of the cheapest smartphone in the country.
