Sunil Mittal urges carriers to bring average cost of smartphones below $50 at MWC

Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman and Managing Director at Bharti Airtel, has urged carriers present at the MWC to float a tender for 100 million smartphones in lieu of bringing the average price of smartphones below $50 (approximately Rs 2,500). Though the handset vendors are making smartphones much more affordable but the average costs are still about $150 depriving large sections of the world’s population, especially in emerging markets. Mittal said that GSMA, which represents over 800 mobile phone operators, should lead the initiative of bringing telcos together, the Economic Times reports.

Mittal, who was speaking at the MWC pointed out that customers were doing banking as well as other transactions on low-end phones and smartphone adoption would enable them to do a lot more. Nearly five years ago, GSMA had invited bids for sub $30 handsets and operators in emerging markets placed order for more than 12 million cellphones in the first phase alone after Motorola said it would supply these low-cost phones.

Read

Image Courtesy: Forbes

Google+ Tags: Bharti Airtel, mobile companies to float tender for 100 million smartphones, MWC, MWC 2012, Smartphones, sunil mittal, sunil mittal urges mobile companies to bring a $50 phone