Smartphones will reach the mass-market in emerging economies as soon as their prices fall below $100, according to the head of Mediatek, the biggest supplier of mobile phone chips to China.
Tsai Ming-kai, the Taiwanese company's chairman and chief executive, said in a rare interview that the touchscreen phones, which give users internet access through third-generation networks, should follow other phone technologies in becoming quickly a mass consumer product sold at a relatively low price.
“All end-products – besides televisions, from our experience – if [they are] to become very widespread then they have to sell for less than US$100 or even under US$50,” he told the Financial Times; this was usually achieved when market penetration breached 30 per cent.