US$250 to become benchmark price for entry-level smartphones Tweet

Open and low-cost chip platforms have enabled prices of smartphones offered by Taiwan-based vendors to drop to retail prices of US$250, about the same as that of touch-panel feature-phones being offered on the market by global first-tier vendors, according to sources from Taiwan-based handset makers.

On May 24 2010, Taiwan-based GSmart introduced the S1205 smartphone based on MediaTek's MT6516 platform and Windows Mobile 6.5. In the first quarter, HTC also launched the Android-based Smart smartphone, which supports Qualcomm's new entry-level Brew platform. Both devices are priced at US$250 retail, which could become the benchmark for low-end smartphones in the near future, the sources said.

The MT6516, which only supports Windows Mobile 6.5, is quite popular among China-based handset makers, the sources said, adding that handsets based on the platform retail at about NT$4,000-6,000 (US$124-186), about 50-100% less expensive than their Taiwan-made counterparts.

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