Indian Company to Sell $20 Cell Phone - Science News | Science & Technology | Technology News

FOXNews.com - Indian Company to Sell $20 Cell Phone - Science News | Science & Technology | Technology News: "MUMBAI, India — India has already built the world's cheapest car — the $2,500 Tata Nano — and now the country has unveiled the telecommunications equivalent: the $20 'people's phone.'

The mobile handset, developed by Spice, the Indian telecoms group that is listed in Bombay and worth $2 billion, is angled at the very lowest end of the market. This means the phone has jettisoned all 'non-essential' features — such as a screen.

'It is just a phone,' said Bhupendra Kumar Modi, the Spice chairman, who hopes to sell about 10 million of the low-cost phones in the next year. Mobile phones priced under about $40 account for only about a fifth of the global market.

However, with half the world's population yet to make a phone call and Western markets becoming saturated — there are more mobile phones than people in the U.K. — companies see massive potential in budget devices aimed at the developing world."