WNA

AnandTech is reporting from ARM’s Tech Day today, that the company predicts that the cost of a phone with a single-core Cortex A5 chip will go as low as $20 within the next few months.

The $20 smartphone will have to use a single-core Cortex-A5 processor and 2.5G (EDGE) wireless data. Still, notes AnandTech, a single Cortex A5 is faster than the ARM11 in the original iPhone, which retailed for $599 in 2007.

ARM notes that even a $25 phone like the Firefox handsets announced at Mobile World Congress has to cut down on RAM and other specs to hit that price point, making it unlikely to run Android satisfactorily.

By 2018 ARM expects over a billion entry level (< $150) smartphone shipments per year, around 2x what it is today.