Earlier this year, during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, we told you about Mozilla's plans to bring smartphones into even the poorest regions by introducing a $25 dollar device.
Now the organization has launched a major new effort in that plan by announcing plans to bring its low-cost smartphone to India in the next few months.
"The platform will give us an edge in upgrading buyers from feature phones to smartphones while making it
affordable for the mass market," said Sanjay Kumar Kalirona, of India mobile firm Intex Technologies, in a statement accompanying Mozilla's announcement. "This will propel our devices to be much more than a way to use the Web, but take the engagement further and develop the Web as a mobile platform."
The news came during this week's Mobile Asia Expo in Shanghai.
"[We are] pleased to introduce Firefox OS in India through our smartphones to cater to the country's masses," said Dilip Modi, CEO of Spice Telecom, one of the leading mobile phone service providers in India, and the other company leading Mozilla's push into the country.
According to a recent report from research firm Mediacells,India is poised to become the largest market for first-time smartphone users in 2014. Injecting Mozilla's affordable, Firefox OS-powered device into the market is likely to help drive that regional shift in smartphone usage.
Further strengthening its position in Asia versus Android, on Wednesday, Mozilla also announced the addition Chunghwa Telecom, the largest telecom in Taiwan, to its list of wireless companies involved in the Firefox OS initiative.
According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, Mozilla will also bring the low-cost smartphone to Indonesia later this year.
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