Early on in Firefox OS’s life, Mozilla explained that one of the main goals of the platform is to bring entry-level, affordable smartphones to developing markets. Now Mozilla is working to achieve that goal by launching some uber-cheap handsets in India and Indonesia.
Mozilla COO Gong Li told the Wall Street Journal that Firefox OS-powered smartphones that cost as little as $25 will hit India and Indonesia later this year. Gong went on to explain that at $25, “there is no price gap between a smartphone and a feature phone,” which could help to get more feature phone owners to make the jump to a smartphone.
Mozilla is currently working with Chinese manufacturer Spreadtrum Communications, Inc. to develop a chipset that will help make $25 smartphones a reality.
We’ve already seen some pretty cheap Firefox OS hardware hit the market, including the $80 ZTE Open and $99.99 ZTE Open C. Those prices can still be out of reach some some folks in emerging markets, though, so Mozilla is continuing to bring the cost of Firefox OS hardware down even further. If it can get that cheap hardware out at a price around $25, it could certainly convince quite a few folks to pick up a Firefox OS phone and potentially stick with the platform for a while.
