Cheap Gadgets Targeting Developing Countries

Cheap gadgets are on the go, and the trend is moving towards the direction of focusing on low-average-income developing countries. The potential market in developing countries is huge, considering the fact that some of the regions like South Africa is still tagged with a very low technology occupancy rate. With this fact in mind, some of the giant corporations are competing to offer cheap gadgets and electronic devices, with extremely low profit margin, but as a long-term marketing strategy to increase their reputation in the next fast-growing market.

Motorola Offers Mobile Phone Tagged at USD30

Motorola is one of the giant corporations aggressively started their marketing campaign to setup a battle ground in the emerging markets among the developing countries. Recently, Motorola was awarded a contract to supply mobile phones to countries like India, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Yemen, and Kenya at dirt-cheap price of USD30, by the Emerging Market Handset (EMH) programme.

The EMH programme initiated by the GSM Association is intended to “connect the unconnected”. This is the second EMH contract Motorola won. Back in February, Motorola won similar contract to supply USD40 phones to emerging markets.

Motorola spokesperson admits that the profit margin is extremely low; but, the huge quantity could bring up Motorola's market share to compete with its rival, especially Nokia which is currently ranked the first. In addition, the long term marketing strategy in developing countries could help to plant Motorola's reputation, and directly increase the rate of return-on-investment in the long run.

Worth a note that, the second EMH bidding has received extremely good response from the mobile phone manufacturers, and half of the 10 bids submitted were below USD30.

USD100 Laptop for Kids

Researches in Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have made it possible for school children to benefit from having notebook computers at school that they could also tote home to use on their own at relatively cheap and affordable price of USD100 each. This programme is initiated by Nicholas Negroponte, the MIT Media Lab leader. According to Negroponte, someone would have to make laptops inexpensive enough for officials in developing countries to purchase in mass, in order for kids everywhere to benefit from the educational and communications powers of the Internet.

The USD100 laptop is not running on Windows; but instead, the freely available Linux operating system. So, in the future, Linux might be gaining larger scale of popularity in developing countries, due to the relatively low cost-of-ownership. Comparing between the cheap but handicapped Windows Starter Edition and free yet powerful Linux, Linux is undeniably a good option to envision the plan of cheap laptop and desktop computers for educational purposes.

The cheap laptop designed by MIT is equipped with AMD 500MHz processor, and Flash memory substituting the less-durable hard-disk drive. The lunchbox-sized laptop can also be foldable into more positions than traditional notebook computers. Besides, the laptops would have a rubber casing that closes tightly, to maximize indestructibility.

References:
Associate Press - Design of $100 Laptop for Kids Unveiled (syndicated in Yahoo News!)
Reuters - Motorola wins new cheap phone deal with $30 model