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India has already built the world's cheapest car – the £1,250 Tata Nano – nowthe country has unveiled the telecoms equivalent: the £10 "people's phone".
The mobile handset, developed by Spice, the Indian telecoms group that islisted in Bombay and worth £1 billion, is angled at the very lowest end ofthe market.
This means the phone has jettisoned all "non-essential" features – such as ascreen. "It is just a phone," said Bhupendra Kumar Modi, the Spice chairman,who hopes to sell about 10 million in the next year.
Mobile phones priced under about £20 account for only about a fifth of theglobal market.
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With the "people's phone", Spice is joining the race to sell handsets to theup-and-coming new generation of Asian, African and South American consumersdubbed "the next billion".
The company will begin selling its people's phone in Asian markets from nextmonth. Spice has already suggested prices can be stripped down further andthat a £5 mobile is not far away.
Cheap products from India are already making waves around the globe, thoughBritish shoppers are likely to have to wait to feel the ripples.
Since the Nano, the world's cheapest automobile, was unveiled last month, itsmanufacturer, Tata, has been inundated with queries from non-Indians askingwhether they can buy "the people's car".
The 33bhp two-cylinder vehicle is priced at 1 lakh (or 100,000 rupees, about1,250 pounds), excluding taxes. The base model will cost about 130,000rupees on the road - a sum that would buy a stereo system for a BMW.
Tata says it will export the Nano to the UK and other overseas marketseventually – but not for about three years.
Meanwhile, India, the world's fastest-growing market for mobile phones is aprime target for mobile manufacturers.
It is estimated that more than 870 million of India's 1.1 billion populationare yet to own a phone. Mobile subscribers in the country are expected tomore than double in the next three years, to 500 million.
The remainder of the "next billion" are not being overlooked. Nokia, theworld's largest manufacturer, is experimenting with cheap handsets that canbe used for mobile banking in Africa.