Intex launches Firefox smartphone at Rs1,999, aims to launch 3 more in 12 months

By Gulveen Aulakh & Danish Khan

NEW DELHI: Intex Technologies, that launched India’s, and possibly the world’s, cheapest smartphone on the Firefox operating system for Rs 1,999 on Monday, will introduce three more devices on the same platform within the next 12 months, including a 3G Firefox device within this year.

Intex is the second partner company after Spice, which announced a Firefox smartphones for Rs 2,299 last week in India, one of the fastest growing smartphones markets worldwide. Spice’s device goes on sale on August 29 on snapdeal.com, while Intex’s device is already available now, on the same website.

Jane Hsu, director of product marketing at US-headquartered Mozilla Corp’s mobile devices group, told ET that the company will increase its reach in the Indian market through tie-ups with larger local brands – such as Micromax, Karbonn and Lava – one of which is expected to close by mid-September.
"We’re launching more devices… See if we can close the deal before mid-September," Hsu said.

"We’re open to working with all brands willing to work with Firefox OS".

Having launched Firefox devices a year ago in Latin America, Eastern and Southern Europe where phones are sold bundled with calling plans from operators, Hsu admitted that Mozilla will have to adopt a different strategy in India, where consumers prefer to purchase phones, calling plans and data plans separately.

Mozilla is banking on first time smartphone users - or featurephone users who make up 70% of India’s 900 million mobile subscriber market - who could choose Firefox devices due to the attractive price and consumer experience which they feel will be far better than that offered by other operating systems.

"It’s harder to convince users who are already using smartphones," Hsu said.

Firefox feels that Indian consumers will find the operating system far simpler than other operating systems in the market, that take up a lot of memory space in a smartphone, a problem that most users want solutions to, which has in turn prompted Google to come out with lighter versions of Android.

However, Mozilla is still holding talks with large carriers like Bharti Airtel, Vodafone India and Telenor that has a global partnership with the Firefox OS maker, for launching phones bundled with data plans. Monday, it announced a similar tie up with Aircel.

"Indian telecom operators are more interested in 3G smartphones instead of 2G ones," she added.

Indian carriers want more high-paying data customers which will be driven by 3G connectivity.While Firefox will build the developer community and the app ecosystem, which is very nascent compared to Android, local brands Intex and Spice will spend on marketing the smartphones and devise separate strategies to popularize the Firefox operating system.

Intex will spend about Rs 6-7 crore for promoting the smartphone, a large chunk of which will be used to advertise in print media, targeting the tier 2 and tier 3 cities. "We will have investments but we cannot afford that kind (Google)," Hsu said.

ET had reported earlier that Google is spending $ 25 million or around Rs 100 crore to market its Android One devices in India, due to launch next month.
A 3G Firefox device will be launched for under Rs 4,000 by December while other models with higher screen sizes will follow the next year. Intex Technologies’ business head for mobile phones Sanjay Kumar Kalirona added that all devices will be priced under Rs 6,000 - a range where they will compete with existing Android devices and new Android One devices.

"We’re coming from a very different angle into the industry where we believe that it might take some time but in the future, Firefox emerging as the third operating system," Hsu said and added that the company was aiming at 1% share of the global OS market soon, as it crossed sale of 750,000 devices in the first half of this year.