China Mobile Launches Own Brand Android Smartphones, Starting At Just $80

There’ll be approximately 300 million Android users in China by the end of this year as Chinese consumers snap up droids at lots of different price points. Now China Mobile (NYSE:CHL; HKG:0941), the world’s biggest telco by user-base, is getting in on the act, this week launching its own brand smartphones for the first time ever.

The two Android-based models from China Mobile are the 5-inch screened M701 for RMB 1,299 ($210), and the budget 4-inch M601 phone for just RMB 499 ($80), pictured below.

The pricier China Mobile M701 has a 1.2GHz quad-core processor made by Mediatek, and is made by white goods and electronics manufacturer Hisense. The cheap M601 phone is made by BYD, the auto-maker that’s backed by Warren Buffet, but which has been struggling due to middle-class Chinese consumers’ aversion to Chinese-brand cars.

China Mobile CEO Li Yue told local media that he believes Chinese people usually change their mobile phones every 23 months, so at least 300 million new mobile devices are needed every year. And so China Mobile wants a slice of the cheaper segment of the market, which is dominated by a mix of smaller Samsung phones and Chinese-brand Android devices. Just last week we saw a new contender emerge in the form of Xiaomi’s cheapest ever smartphone, the $129 Red Rice phone.

China Mobile’s own brand phones come with its Siri-like app Lingxi pre-installed. That app came about after the giant telco’s 15 percent stake in speech recognition company iFlyTek last year.

BYD brings your device

BYD is now a fully-fledged gadget OEM, taking on the likes of Foxconn and Pegatron as a manufacturer of other brand’s devices. BYD is believed to make the HTC One for HTC, and the Ascend P6 for Huawei, among others. With BYD struggling in the solar power sector and seeing tiny growth as an auto-maker, its new focus seems to be gadget making.

But BYD’s plans for its very own phone brand, which we reported on in October 2011, seem to have been shelved.

(Source: Xinhua, via Sinocism newsletter; Photo: Sohu IT)

(Editing by Paul Bischoff)