WNA

Spreadtrum Communications, China’s leading mobile chip supplier, and Mozilla, the Firefox’s OS designer, have teamed up to create a $25 smartphone — its startling low cost enabled by web technologies.

Spreadtrum unveiled the SC6821 WCDMA smartphone chipset at Mobile World Congress that, they say, will enable $25 smartphones. The two companies have completed the integration of Firefox OS with several of Spreadtrum’s WCDMA and EDGE smartphone chipsets.

The first-generation Firefox OS smartphones, which were launched last year by companies such as Alcatel’s Fire E,LG’s FireWeb, Huawei’s Y300 and ZTE’s Open, have been made available primarily through operator channels.

Carriers like Telefonica have deployed Firefox OS smartphones, but Scott Bicheno, senior analyst at Strategy Analytics, said Firefox OS handsets make up “less than 1% of total global smartphone shipments.”

Mozilla’s $25 Firefox phone is a direct threat that Nokia never saw coming, says Venture Beat. Nokia’s launch of three Android smartphones, is also targeted at emerging markets.

The Nokia X, Nokia X+ and Nokia XL are priced to capture the fast-growing affordable smartphone market and provide an on-ramp to Microsoft services like Skype, OneDrive and outlook.com.

The Nokia 220 is an Internet-ready mobile phone with social apps, priced at only EUR 29. The Nokia Asha 230 is the most affordable Asha touch device ever. Available in single and Dual SIM variants, it will start rolling out immediately across Asia-Pacific, Europe, India, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa.