90% of potential cell phone customers aren't looking for a smartphone, they don't currently have any sort of phone and guess who makes all the cheap waterproof rugged phones.
hint - the next billion customers don't live near Apple stores.
hint - the next billion customers don't live near Apple stores.
If you wanted to jump on the cheap phone trend, you're ten years late. Whatever margins existed once are now gone. Nokia, the king of cheap phones, just fired their CEO and replaced him with a software guy from Microsoft. Apple, HP and Blackberry know exactly what market their fighting over.
[0]: http://www.poder360.com/article_detail.php?id_article=4704
http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html has it at about 6.8B, and a Google search on "current world population" turns up similar figures.
That price figure is going to fall way, way lower once the Android supporting Mediatek chipsets enter full production [http://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/david-manners-semicon...]
I predict $100 Mediatek-powered Android smartphones by summer 2011, flooding the Asian market.
The same market that has one Nokia1100 per village in Africa aren't about to buy $100 smartphones for each of their kids.
[http://toostep.com/debate/two-year-old-micromax-becomes-indi...]
Sub-$100 Android devices that "run fast" are inevitable. The only question is how soon.