Google has brought its low cost Android One handset to Europe, with Turkey the first market to start selling the smartphone.
The handset launched last autumn in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and the Philippines with the aim to broaden the reach of the Android ecosystem.
Google has partnered with local device manufacturer General Mobile to launch the General Mobile 4G in Turkey.
The smartphone swaps out the usual Mediatek chipset that has featured in other Android One handsets for a Qualcomm Snapdragon 410 chip and 2GB of RAM. It has a 13MP rear and 5MP front facing camera and also has a five inch Gorilla Glass screen.
It is the first Android One device to be LTE compatible, with the long-awaited 4G auction due to take place in Turkey in the coming months.
Caesar Sengupta, VP, Product Management, Android One, said: “Our goal with Android One is to empower more people to do great things with the Internet by putting a high-quality, up-to-date smartphone into their hands. Turkish creativity and innovation are already exciting, so we can’t wait to see what people do with Android One.”
According to the latest figures from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, Android saw its market share decline across Europe’s main markets by 3.1 percentage points to 68.4 percent for the three months ending March 2015.
The operating system was under threat from Apple and its new 6 and 6 Plus devices.
Carolina Milanesi, Chief of Research at Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, said: “In the first quarter of 2015, the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus continued to attract consumers across Europe, including users who previously owned an Android smartphone. On average, across Europe’s big five countries during the first quarter of 2015, 32.4 percent of Apple’s new customers switched from iOS to Android.”
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