ARM: Cheap smartphones will cost $ 20

ARM expects it to be possible to buy a low-end Android smartphone for $ 20 in the coming months. This is a phone with a cheap Cortex-A5 chip and support for GPRS only.

According to ARM, a price of $ 20 is also probably the lowest possible price for a phone because there comes a point when production costs can no longer scale, writes AnandTech.

The chip manufacturer states that there have been various developments in recent times that have made phones considerably cheaper. Lenovo already showed a $60 phone with a Cortex A5 and only GPRS a year ago. That price today is around $30 and Mozilla is working on a $25 smartphone with Firefox OS.

ARM predicts that phones with a Cortex A5 chip, Android and GPRS will be available this year for $ 20. AnandTech notes that this chip is faster than the ARM11 chip from the first iPhone that came on the market in 2007.

The number of cheap smartphones under 150 euros that are shipped to stores will be around one billion units in 2018, according to ARM, twice as high as it is now. The number of midrange smartphones will also increase; less is happening with the high-end segment, ARM expects.