Google's CEO wants to see smartphones priced as low as $30 in India

Google clearly wants to sell more Android smartphones in India, one of the biggest and fastest growing markets for such devices. Today, India-born Google CEO Sundar Pichai stated today he would like to see smartphones in the country priced as low as $30 (Rs. 2000).

NDTV reports that Pichai made the remarks during an address at his alma mater IIT-Kharagpur. He stated he would “love to see cheaper smartphones, entry-level smartphones” and that he would like to see prices for those kinds of phones go down to $30, or about Rs. 2,000.

Google has been trying to encourage smartphone makers to launch more affordable handsets through its Android One platform for the past couple of years, but so far it has met with mixed results. We have seen smartphones sold in India for prices similar to what Pichai would like to see, although their quality is not exactly high.

We have also seen one case where a company tried to sell a smartphone for as low as $4 in India. However, that business, Ringing Bells, has since announced it has only shipped 70,000 units of that device so far, well below the company’s previous prediction of 2.5 million units. It will be interesting to see if smartphone makers can create entry-level devices that are both priced at $30 and also offer decent hardware and performance specs.