Smartphone Launched for the price of coffee

An Indian company has launched a smartphone that
costs just £2.50 - what many of us pay for our
morning coffee.
The company behind it, Ringing Bells, says its
mission is to give citizens in rural and semi-urban
areas access to digital technology.
Such parts of India have a population of half a billion
people.
The Freedom 251 phone (costing Indian Rs 251) as a
four-inch screen and runs Android Lillipop software.
It has a 1.3GHz quad-core processor and 8GB of
memory, which can be expanded to 32GB.
There are cameras back and front.
A women's safety app is pre-loaded, while other apps
are aimed at farmers, fishermen, and provide
medical assistance to the elderly.
Ringing Bells is offering a one-year warranty and has
more than 650 service centres across the country.
It is working with two Indian government initiatives.
India is the second-largest mobile phone market in
the world, behind China, but only 19% of the
population are on the internet.
A report from the Internet and Mobile Association of
India, and KPMG, says that India has 236 million
mobile internet users.
That figure is expected to rise to 317 million next
year.
But there are doubts about whether the Freedom
251’s low price is commercially viable.
A mobile entrepreneur, Sachin Sen, told Sky News:
"India is a country of announcements and such
launches need to be taken with a pinch of salt.
"It's an artificial pricing and subsidised by companies
and investors. It's got to have a longevity and be able
to sustain itself.”
Pointing to the Akash tablet, launched for just £30 in
2011, Mr Sen said: "It fizzled out as it was
unsustainable and fell by the wayside."
FINANCE
Smartphone launched for the price of a coffeeSky News 1 hr ago
Neville Lazarus, Sky News Asia Producer