Google hasn’t given up on its Android One initiative

Android One was a valiant effort on Google’s part to bring affordable smartphones to people in developing nations, but it didn’t turn out quite how the company had planned. Google hasn’t given up on the initiative, however, and has announced that it will be relaunching the project in a few countries with a handful of new smartphones that are priced at the “sweet spot” of $50.

Google has announced it is planning a reboot of its Android One low-price smartphone initiative in India over the next few weeks. Part of the plans for the new project includes delivering devices that are priced at the “sweet spot” of $50. The first Android One phones launched in India about a year ago with the goal of standardizing low-cost smartphones and ensuring all users were on the latest version of Android. Google doesn’t make any of the hardware, but it provides manufacturers with a set of hardware standards which they have to adhere to. The first series of phones were priced around $100 and the company has since expanded the program to additional emerging markets, reaching its seventh country, Turkey, in May. Although Google had aimed to get Android One phones into the hands of billions of consumers, sales figures for the devices were not what the company had hoped for. Around 700,000 Android One phones were sold in the first 100 days, primarily in India, with the same number of devices being shipped in the subsequent five months.