India long way behind China, but will see faster smartphone growth: Xiaomi’s Hugo Barra

Xiaomi Redmi 1S enters the arena: A true ‘first smartphone’ for the feature phone generationIn 2010, Micromax launched the Andro A60, a phone that was not memorable in any way, except for its catchy advertisements. Till then Android phones were considered out of reach of the masses, since they were mostly high-end, but Micromax billed the A60 as ‘My first Android’. It was priced at around Rs 8,000, had a tiny display with a 320×240 pixel resolution, a 600 MHz single-core processor, memory of 150 MB and a SD card slot. It really was the most basic offering you could get.

It may not have been the ideal first smartphone in terms of specs or Android phone, but since then the threshold for entry-level has changed massively and the specs picture has also changed dramatically. The price revolution has been led by Micromax and other Indian vendors such as Karbonn, Lava and Spice. As more and more brands arrived in the market, the low-end pricing kept 

Calm after the storm? Xiaomi Mi 3 reportedly discontinued in India as Mi 4 launch Looks like Xiaomi is training all its attention on the upcoming Redmi 1S as reports around the web suggest that the company will stop selling the Mi 3 indefinitely.

A report on tech blog TechPP quotes the company’s India head Manu Jain as saying, “Over next few weeks, we will focus on Redmi 1S, and Mi 3 wont be available. We will take the final call after few weeks, once we have more visibility / data points.”