Mozilla releases £20 smartphone in India

Intex Cloud FX will 'enable the masses to get a smartphone experience at the cost of a feature phone', says phone manufacturer

Mozilla, the firm behind the Firefox browser, has released a budget smartphone in India that will be sold for only 1,999 rupees (£20).

The phone, dubbed Intex Cloud FX, will be sold exclusively on Indian e-commerce site Snapdeal, and will use the Firefox operating system (OS). It was manufactured by Indian firm Intex Technologies.

The firm is looking to gain a foothold in emerging markets such as Asia, where smartphone sales are seeing strong growth.

"Firefox OS smartphones in the ultra-low-cost category will redefine the entry-level smartphone and create strong momentum in Asia," Dr Li Gong, president of Mozilla, suggested.

Intex said that it expects the launch of the phone to "enable the masses to get [a] smartphone experience at the cost of a feature phone".

The Intex Cloud FX has a 1.0GHz processor and expandable memory of up to 4GB. It will have dual-SIM capabilities, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. Several languages including Hindi and Tamil will be supported on the phone.

The smartphone will be one of several Mozilla devices that have been released in the past few years. The firm has partnered with the likes of LG, Alcatel, Huawei and ZTE for the release of other smartphones in Latin America, the US and Europe.