Indian tech company Ringing Bells has launched the world's cheapest Android phone called Freedom 251 costing just $3.67. (Photo : YouTube/ Digit Hindi)
An Indian firm better known by its name Ringing Bells asserted that its Freedom 251 Smartphone could cost just 251 rupees ($3.67) and this sparked a huge demand in the first hours of sales.
However, owing to the Smartphone's specs and projected costs, skeptics have raised questions about both the device and the company's pricing strategy. At its small price of around $3.6, it has quite remarkable specs. In actual sense, it resembles Apple's iPhone 4 including the icons and the home button, BBC reported.
Other reports also suggest that Freedom 251 is a rebranded Adcom Ikon 4. In any case, the device comes with a 4-inch touch screen display with a resolution of 540 × 960 pixels.
It is powered by a quad-core processor clocked at 1.3GHz and 1GB of RAM backed up by 8GB of internal storage which is expandable up to 32GB via microSD slot. The Freedom 251 also sports a 3.2 megapixel rear camera and a 0.3 megapixel selfie camera.
Regarding the operating system, the device runs Android 5.1. It is powered by a 1450mAh battery and supports a single SIM (GSM) plus Wi-Fi, FM and Bluetooth connectivity. The Smartphone also houses sensors like the proximity sensor.
According to many doubters, the Freedom 251 has a jaw-dropping price tag considering its features. As indicated by First Post, on Feb. 18, Ashok Chadha, the president of ringing bells took to answer questions asked by the media on the unbelievable price of the phone. He said that the company intends to achieve the low price point using economies of scale and even clarified that there was no government subsidy on their side as speculated.
Chadha continued by saying that if they took 30% of the Indian Smartphone market which was their target, then the company could get an estimated Rs 500 ($7.2) off the Rs 2,500 ($36) bill of materials per unit. Nevertheless, selling the Freedom 251 at Rs 251 ($3.6) according to analysts could still incur losses by a great magnitude.
Besides economies of scale, Ringing Bells also intends to use their 251 Freedom site as a marketing and selling platform in order to reduce costs. However, the Freedom 251 is not yet BIS certified and there are still many creases waiting to be ironed out around it.
Watch a clip on more about the Freedom 251:
