Google to Help Indian Companies Make Cheap Smartphones

Google Inc. unveiled a new initiative on Wednesday called Android One to get cheap smartphones into the hands of more people in developing countries.

Sundar Pichai, Google’s senior vice president of Android, Chrome and Apps, said during the company’s developer conference in San Francisco that Google would share basic design building blocks of smartphones with manufacturers in developing countries. The goal, he said, is to help those companies keep pace with rapid changes in the industry, which requires hardware companies to release new models every nine months or so.

Google will also provide automatic software updates for the phones and is working with network providers in developing countries to craft “affordable” wireless plans, Mr. Pichai added.

Mr. Pichai displayed a new smartphone from Micromax India with a 4.5-inch screen, a dual SIM card that allows users to switch among wireless carriers and a removable SD storage card. He said Micromax, Karbonn and Spice will offer the phone in India for less than $100 later this year.