These affordable handsets should have been priced at around Rs 6,000 ($100 / €75)

Aug 14, 2014 16:31 GMT  ·  By

For those of you who don’t remember, Google promised to bring much cheaper Android smartphones to emerging markets sometime this fall.

The company mentioned India as one of the targets for project Android One and also highlighted some of the main features to be included in these handsets.

The Android One smartphones would be manufactured by local OEMs, but they should contain a vanilla Android version without any bloatware. All these devices would then be approved by Google for release and will be purchasable in these emerging markets.

The first country to get these Android One phones seems to be India, Mobigyaan reports. The good news is that the first handsets may arrive as early as September.

Unfortunately, it appears that local OEMs disagree with the price tag announced by Google at I/O and are not thinking of releasing Android One smartphones price at around Rs 10,000 ($165 / €120).

Considering Google’s promise that these Android One phones will be available for Rs 6,000 ($100 / €75), this is an important change that could drastically affect sales.

Some of these OEMs also want to pre-load some of their applications on these Android One smartphones as well, which goes against the purpose of the whole program. Stay tuned for more updates on the matter.