Vodafone Prepares World's Cheapest Mobile Phone

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Vodafone announced yesterday what it claims is the “its most affordable ultra low cost handset to date”. It’ll be a pair of phones, the Vodafone 150 and 250, which will both retail for $15 and $20 unsubsidized. They’re hoping the device will make it to developing markets, and they hope it’ll help get phones in the hands of more people.

As Vodafone’s press release says, the purpose of these ultra-cheap handsets is “to maximize the availability of [cell service] across countries with sizeable and isolated rural populations.” The list of countries that they hope to target is India, Turkey, Congo, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Mozambique, Qatar, South Africa and Tanzania.

As you can imagine, there isn’t a lot of decent telcom coverage in some of these countries. Vodafone has been adding an “extensive logistics infrastructure” for some time and they say they can reach “deep rural segments where mobile penetration is low.”

The phones will offer both voice and SMS services. They’ll even support a pay-by-SMS feature for mobile payments. As for the phones themselves, obviously, they’re low-cost and a bit crude by most standards. The Vodafone 150 will feature a monochrome screen while the Vodafone 250 will support a color screen and an FM radio.

It will support custom ringtones, phonebook connectivity and 2 embedded games, the folks at Vodafone aren’t totally draconian. These remind me of a Nokia 5120, they’re basically 10 year old mobile phones.

The Vodafone 150 will go for $15 unsubsidized and the Vodafone 250 will go for $20 unsubsidized. No word on a release date, but if you’re reading this, you’re probably not in the market for one.