Prices of octa-core powered phones drop in China as battle rages for low-end of the market

The battle is ready to rage on in China for control of the low-end smartphone market. When industry sources start saying that companies like Coolpad will start offering octa-core powered handsets for less than 1000 yuan ($165 USD), the red ink could end up flowing like blood. The Coolpad Great God F1 uses the true octa-core MT6592 processor made by MediaTek, and includes a 5 inch screen with resolution of 720 x 1280, and a 13MP camera. That phone is priced at 888 yuan ($147 USD). This is one of two octa-core powered smartphones recently launched by the manufacturer.

Coolpad's extremely aggressive pricing will no doubt force other players to cut prices. Those include names like ZTE, Huawei, Lenovo, TCL and Gionee, all of whom have released octa-core phones in a price range of 1699 yuan to 1999 yuan ($281 USD to $331 USD). Xiaomi is one handset producer that just might be able to undercut Coolpad. There is speculation that Xiaomi will launch a new octa-core driven handset in the second quarter of this year for 799 yuan ($132 USD).

Besides the price war in the low-end octa-core part of the market, analysts see something similar taking place in the 4G LTE segment of China's smartphone business. LTE chipset providers like Qualcomm, Marvell Technology, MediaTek and Spreadtrum Communications are embroiled in the competitive business of providing silicon to manufacturers, keeping pricing low. In addition, the world's largest carrier, China Mobile, has seen heavy demand for low cost LTE powered phones. Sources expect the price of a low-end  4G LTE phone to hit 1500 yuan ($248 USD) in the first half of the year, before dropping to 1000 yuan ($165 USD) in the second half of 2014.

source: DigiTimes