Android One Gets Bumped Up as Android Go Goes Even Deeper into Sub-Premium Smartphone Territory

android go

It’s understandable if you were under the impression that Android One was Google’s initiatives for low-cost Android phones in emerging markets. But with the announcement of Android Go, the new OEM version of the Android mobile operating system, Android One has now been bumped up a tier, to the mid-range smartphone market.

With media attention generally being hogged up by premium and super-premium smartphones, not many people know about Google’s Android One program. It was originally launched as a standard for OEMs to follow on hardware and software design, and intended for the $200 to $300 price band for smartphones from various phone makers.

It still remains the same, with plans to bring it to the United States sometime before the middle of this year, so pretty soon we’re guessing. Android Go goes even lower, into the sub-$100 phone category, where memory is tight and specs have to be limited in order to deliver a matching experience.

Both Android Go’s product manager Arpit Medha as well as Google CEO Sundar Pichai have made it clear that this is not a replacement for Android One. They’re both going to co-exist, one in the low-cost category and one in the mid-range price band. Moving forward, Android Go will be pre-loaded on all devices with 1GB RAM or less. Google has also committed to releasing an Android Go configuration for every new release of Android.

Surprisingly, after India, the United States is being targeted as the second largest market for Android Go. But one feature of Android Go gives us a clue to its real target audience – that of lingual flexibility. That hints at the newly immigrated population in the United States that typically cannot afford an expensive device.

Statistics show that there are 42.4 million immigrants in the United States, as of 2014, and it is the highest ever recorded in American history. Between 2000 and 2014, 18.7 million people settled in the United States. More recently, from 2010 to 2014, new immigration plus births to immigrants numbered 8.3 million people.

Google says that a third of all Android shipments in 2017 across the world will be in the sub-$100 market.

Now, putting two and two together, the U.S. will offer a significant opportunity for Android Go devices.

Just in case you were wondering, neither Android One or Android Go refer to hardware or devices. They are configurations of Android that are pushed to OEMs for sub-premium markets. The truth is, they give Google more control over what the OEM can and cannot do with the software, and it’s one way for Google to gain more control over the Android ecosystem.

The first phones running Android Go will launch in 2018, but we should be able to see a preview of the presumably light-weight Android version come out at the end of this year.

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