Android One: Google relaunches cheap smartphone, new models coming
The project enabled by Google in 2014 and aimed to the spread of low-cost smartphones takes on a new basis. The Android One program is now part of a broader strategy hardware developed by BigG.
Google seems serious about giving a new impetus to the Android One program, born in 2014 in order to encourage the spread of low-cost Android smartphones in emerging markets. An objective allowing BigG to expand the user base can access its services in markets that still have good growth potential and in which smartphones offered at a low price have more chances to succeed than the premium models.
After a certainly not overwhelming start, the program starts on different bases, so preserving its purpose. Mike Hayes, Director of Business Development, Android and Chrome Partnerships, Google, has confirmed to the Economic Times of India that Android One again with different premises than in the past:
Android One has become part of a larger hardware strategy, under which Rick Osterloh Motorola has recently joined Google.
The first effect of the new impetus given to the Android One program will result in a new series of models manufactured by OEMs who have chosen to support it. The release timing will depend solely by OEMs, while Google will take care of the development of the software platform.
The first Android One models, made by companies like Micromax, Karbonn and Spice, still involved in the project, have resulted in low-cost smartphones, equipped with a release of the operating system basically stock. Hayes did not confirm how many and what are the other companies that produce Android terminals in the future One.
The manager has also stressed some important stages of the Android One program that, after the lukewarm initial reception, started to give more space to OEMs. The models initially marketed shared the basic hardware platform outlined by Google to ensure optimum performance of the software.
Over time, the stitches were loosening providing OEMs with the freedom to use the most varied hardware configurations. This freedom will continue to characterize the program that arises, in essence, as a platform where Google, working closely with global partners, contributes to the spread of cheap smartphones based on the Android operating system stock.
What changes compared with the past as the major Android One initiative with the overall harmonization and renewed Google’s hardware strategy.
Android One smartphone, initially directed to the markets of Southeast Asia, also have gradually reached the African and the European continent – think of all Aquaris A4.5 BQ. It is not inconceivable, that the new models will be marketed in Europe.
The will to Google aimed at giving new impetus to the distribution of low-cost Android smartphone is justified by the current of global smartphone sales a trend emerged: they are emerging markets the main relief valve of a saturated segment in mature.
