The search giant is aiming to bring phones that cost less than $100 to
"the next five billion" in the emerging markets. First stop: India.
Google
has partnered with handset makers Micromax, Karbonn and Spice to bring
phones that cost less than $100 to India. Android Chief Sundar Pichai
introduced the initiative at the Google I/O developer conference in
June.Google just took an important step toward cementing its dominance over the world with its Android mobile operating system.
In the wee hours of the morning on Monday, almost 8,000 miles away from its headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., Google launched its Android One initiative in New Delhi, India.
The project, originally announced at the company's I/O conference in
June, is essentially a way for Google to guide handset manufacturers in
bringing affordable smartphones to emerging markets.
The
initiative is designed both to reduce the ultimate price tag of Android
smartphones, giving more budget-conscious consumers a chance to try out
the devices, and to bring a more consistent Android experience, ensuring
that those consumers are using Google services. That the Internet giant
is making so much noise out of Android One underscores the importance
of those markets, which are a critical source of future user growth --
and where Google isn't the only company looking to plant its flag.
Android
One is first rolling out in India, then in Indonesia, the Philippines
and South Asia by the end of the year. For the launch, Google has
partnered with three Indian device makers -- Micromax, Karbonn and Spice
-- to create three $100 smartphones, as well as teamed up with the
wireless provider Bharti Airtel, the largest mobile carrier in India,
with 40 percent of smartphone users in the country on that network. After India, Android One will launch in other countries, including the Philippines and Indonesia, by the end of the year.
Google
Phones
made under the Android One rubric will also run "stock" Android, an
unmodified version of the software, without the technical and user
interface flourishes that manufacturers such as Samsung or HTC typically
add to make their smartphones stand out from the competition. The
company has already designed its most current version of Android, called
KitKat, to run on low-cost hardware.
The three new handsets are the Spice Android
One Dream UNO Mi-498, the Micromax Canvas A1 and the Karbonn Sparkle V.
Google on Monday also announced additional hardware partners, including
Asus, HTC, Lenovo and chipmaker Qualcomm.
At launch, the phones
incorporated similar specifications -- 4.5-inch FWVGA display with a
854x480-pixel resolution, quad-core 1.3GHz MediaTek processor, dual-SIM
capability, 1GB RAM and 4GB of onboard storage alongside a microSD card
slot for expandability. There's a rear 5-megapixel camera and a
removable 1,700mAh battery as well.
"With Android One, we not
only want to help people get online, we want to make sure that when
they get there, they can tap into the wealth of information and
knowledge the web holds for everyone," said Sundar Pichai, Google's
senior vice president of Android, Chrome, and apps, in a blog post.
"The
expectation of the user has changed," said Anand Chandrasekaran, Bharti
Airtel's chief product officer, in an interview. "In terms of what they
consider a feature-rich phone -- and what they are willing to pay for
it."
One of the major problems that the initiative addresses,
besides the cost of hardware components, is out-of-date software. In
India, where most data plans are prepaid, users tend to ignore updating
their operating systems and apps because auto-update features usually
eat through much of their plans, Chandrasekaran said. Many just disable
those features and carry on with old software. "Users end up using 40 to
50 percent of their data plans on updates they don't know about," said
Chandrasekaran. "So they turn it off." The phones will also run "stock" Android, unmodified by hardware partners.
CNET
The
carrier will allow users to download Android updates free of charge for
the first six months, as well as 200MB worth of apps -- which won't
count against their their monthly data intake.
By the end of the
year, 1.75 billion people worldwide will own smartphones, according to
eMarketer. Among those already wielding the gadgets, Google has a
sizable lead. Android has 1 billion active users, Pichai said in June,
and its devices make up 80 percent of the global market. Apple's iOS,
which powers iPhones and iPads, accounts for 17 percent.
Google
wants to make sure that when the rest of the population buys their first
smartphones -- mostly in the developing world -- they go with Android.
"We can get the next billion people onto these devices," said Pichai,
introducing the Android One initiative at the I/O conference. On Monday,
Pichai upped his goal, noting that Android One was "for the next five
billion."
The company did not make any of its employees available for this story.
Mission: Connection
As business operations go, the initiative
is in line with Google's -- and several other tech giants' -- long-term
strategy: connect as many users as possible. That way, the company can
get its software and services to an even wider an audience. Taking that
idea even a step further in the pipeline, Google has made major
investments in first bringing Internet access to unwired populations.
Project Loon, an initiative run through the company's ambitious Google X
division, aims to beam Wi-Fi to rural regions via high-altitude
balloons. The company has also reportedly committed more that $1 billion
to satellites that will do the same kind of thing.
Facebook has
similar plans: the company has tinkered with satellites and drones to
deliver people Internet access, through an effort called Connectivity
Labs. And CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been an ardent supporter of affordable
web connectivity through an initiative called Internet.org.
But the most straightforward approach, for now, is smartphones. Microsoft has similar smartphone designs on developing markets.
Over the last seven months, the software titan has eliminated fees for
its Windows Phone, struck deals with some of the same low-cost
manufacturers -- such as Micromax -- and worked with Qualcomm for
low-cost chips and reference designs to enable more affordable
smartphones. Microsoft's Lumia line, formerly created by Nokia, had
already seen a bulk of it success from emerging markets. Google's Project Loon aims to beam Wi-Fi to unconnected populations via high-altitude balloons.
Google
In
India, Samsung -- which runs a modified version of Android on its
phones -- is the handset leader. The top smartphone in the country is
the Galaxy Star Pro, which sells for $76, according to IDC. The
manufacturer's No. 2 and 3 models are the $130 S2 and the $297 Grand 2.
Other companies have also made recent plays in the low-end market. Firefox
makes a smartphone that sells for $33. And the Chinese company Xiaomi
sells a $100 Android smartphone that sold out in India earlier this
month in less than 5 seconds, claimed CEO -- and former Android vice president -- Hugo Barra.
Part
of the goal, Chandrasekaran said, is to entice people who would have
normally bought feature phones to instead go for smartphones -- where
they'll consume three to five times more data on average, according to
Airtel's findings.
"For someone who barely used data to now using 500 percent more, that's a huge moment," he said.
Android One, one Android
While
Android has a dominant grasp of the market, one knock competitors like
Apple always mention is that the software's ecosystem is fragmented.
Because it's an open platform, meaning anyone can use and adapt it,
hardware partners like Samsung have modified it to fit their needs,
leaving users and software developers to wade through Android's many
iterations.
But the very name Android One -- and Google's rule
that hardware partners run stock Android -- seems to suggest the company
wants to home in on a more consistent experience. Onstage at I/O,
Pichai emphasized that all the software on Android One comes from
Google.
"Google has been quietly clamping down on OEMs [or
hardware manufacturers] from making things too custom," said Melissa
Chau, an analyst at IDC, who covers the smartphone market in Asia.
Google's
main play here, though, is reeling in manufacturers who are using
Android, but are not certified for Google Mobile Services, or Google
apps like Maps or Search, said Chau. "They want to make sure, if you're
buying a $100 phone, you're actually using Google services," she said.
"They're trying to clean out all that super fragmented stuff."
The
company has also been aiming toward more uniformity with other Android
projects. For Android Wear -- a modified version of the operating system
tailor-made for wearable devices like smartwatches -- software updates
come more directly from Google, instead of first having to be tested by
carriers. That's because smartwatches typically must be connected to
smartphones, so carriers are not involved. (Though an exception is Samsung's Gear S watch, which has a built-in modem.)
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