During an interview with technology website TechCrunch last week, Jolla board chairman Dr. Antti Saarnio clarified that even though the company had split it’s business into two so as to better focus on software (Sailfish OS), its efforts in the hardware division would not be dying any time soon but they’ll be taking a backseat as attention shifts to the Finnish company’s focus on the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). Dr Saarnio promised the announcement of a new partner to help it drive its agenda in one of the biggest mobile phone markets in the world, India.
Indian smartphone maker Intex is one of the said partners and the company is expected to be one of the first to introduce Sailfish OS powered smartphones to the Indian market. At an event slated for Thursday at the ongoing Mobile World Congress Shanghai, the unnamed Intex smartphone will be shown off to the world. It is expected to ship with the latest version of Sailfish OS, version 2.0. Sailfish 2.0 was introduced earlier in the year during MWC in Barcelona.
Just like we don’t know of the name of the particular Intex smartphone, details of its technical specifications are also scant. However we know that it will be having the two year old Qualcomm-made Snapdragon 600 chipset and support 4G LTE as well. In keeping with the Indian market’s huge appetite for budget smartphones, the device is expected to be priced at around INR 15,000 (or about US $236).
According to new data from Cybex, Intex with a 10.2% share of the Indian smartphone market is the third most popular smartphone maker in India behind Samsung and Micromax. The new smartphone will likely go a long way in boosting its marketshare if it performs as expected.
Source: NDTV
