Google is planning a revamped Android One program in India, where it is rejigging its targets to create a sub $50 (Rs.3,200 approx) smartphone in the country. Reportedly, the company will ramp up investment in the country with the $50 smartphone project being at the heart of the investment.
Google's product czar Sundar Pichai launched Android One in India in September 2014, but the initiative has received a lukewarm response at best. Initially, Google planned on making high quality sub $100 (Rs.6,400 approx) smartphones running unmodified Android, with Google handling the software updates.
More recently, Google partnered with Lava mobile to create a more expensive Android One smartphone called the Pixel V1, which also is the first Android One device to have a large screen. The approach with the Pixel V1 has been different from what Google adopted for the initial wave of devices.
However, despite this, even Rajan Anandan, Google's MD for India and South Asia was quoted in the report saying that it the program had "not lived up to expectations," as he cited supply chain issues, with the availability of products.
More importantly, Anandan claimed that the sweet spot for the program in a price sensitive market like India would be more between $31 and $47 ( Rs.2,000 and Rs.3,000) than the initial target of making phones that cost less than$100.
For Google, Android One is important, though products under the branding have struggled to compete against phones from Chinese brands like Xiaomi, Lenovo and local brands like YU.
The Mountain View based company is in a rat race with companies like Facebook and also local companies which are making products tailored for the slow networks of the country and price sensitive customers.
The company has also managed to localise its key services like Google Now, YouTube and Maps. It also wants to focus more on things like local search, an area where it faces competition from Mumbai based startup JustDial.
In fact, alongside the Android One launch last year, Google announced that it had made YouTube videos available offline in India owing to the poor quality of the network in the country.
That said, as India doesn't offer much in terms of digital ad revenue, Google's main cash-cow, the company is focussing on playing the long game by ramping up investment in projects like Android One.
"Don't get me wrong, the revenue is interesting but . . . we're here really because 10 years from now a billion Indians will be online and when we have a billion Indians online we think that’ is going to make a huge difference to the global internet economy," said Anandan.
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