The duo will be working towards developing affordable 3G and 4G smart feature phones. India is one of the biggest markets for feature phones
MediaTek, a semiconductor company, and KaiOS Technologies, maker of KaiOS operating system, have announced their collaboration to integrate KaiOS with a series of MediaTek chipsets. The first KaiOS-powered MT6572 and MT6731 3G/4G smart feature phones are expected to be launched in Q2 2019.
A recent report by Counterpoint Reserach had said that the revenue opportunity from increasing sales of smart feature phones is expected to be in the region of US$28 billion over the next three years.
Tarun Pathak, associate director at Counterpoint Research had said, “The global smart feature phone demand grew 252 per cent year-on-year in 2018 – albeit from a low base, contributing roughly 16 per cent of the total feature phone volumes. While India is the biggest contributor to this demand, major markets that have driven smart feature phone sales include the United States, United Kingdom, South East Asia and Africa. We estimate that smart feature phones will cross more than half of global feature phone volumes by 2021.”
MediaTek and KaiOS collaboration
MediaTek mobile solutions operate on a range of mobile devices, including smartphones, feature phones, tablets, wearable devices and IoT devices. The company claims that its newest MT6731 platform is optimized to provide a great smart-feature phone experience by bringing technologies like quad-core 64-bit processing and dual 4G SIM technology to the entry-segment mobile phone market.
“With KaiOS’ support for MediaTek entry-segment 3G/4G chipsets, we can deliver more affordable and reliable devices, longer battery life and improve the overall user experience when compared with the old-school 2G/3G feature phones,” said TL Lee, General Manager of MediaTek’s wireless business unit.
KaiOS Technologies CEO Sebastien Codeville said, “Because of our work with MediaTek, we’ll be able to connect more people in important markets where MediaTek has a strong presence, such as India, Southeastern Asia, and Africa. Through collaborative efforts like this, we can finally offer a broad range of affordable devices capable of supporting advanced applications and functionality in these markets.”
KaiOS claims to have shipped more than 80 million devices in over 100 countries. India and Africa are among its biggest markets.
