Intex will be selling ‘India’s Cheapest’ smartphone at $33. The company hopes to sell over 500,000 devices in the next three months in what it calls a “new era” for the market.
Already, Intex has partnered with Mozilla, the non-profit organization behind the Firefox open-source web browser, to create a cheaper alternative to Apple’s iPhone and Samsung’s Galaxy series.
Intex spokesman Joyeeta Mitra said that the smartphone sale is looking for first-time smartphone buyers. The smartphones that began sale this week are the cheapest in the market.
Mitra said: “We have big expectations that this phone will find a large market and we are expect 500,000 sales in the first three months,” she said adding that while the company is initially targeting the Indian market it expects to expand sales to other countries in Asia.
India’s smartphone market is growing rapidly. US market research firm IDC reported shipments leapt by 186 percent to 17.59 million smartphones in the first financial quarter to June this year, compared with the same period last year.
The IDC forecasted that smartphone sales would continue to rocket in coming years, growing at an annual rate of 40 percent for the next five years.