Android and iOS are clearly leading the smartphone race, but they haven’t effectively penetrated emerging markets. The primary reason is their handsets cost hundreds of dollars. Of course, there are some OEMs that offer Android handsets costing less than $100, but in emerging markets, consumers are looking for smartphones that cost less than $50. If you think that’s impossible to deliver, Mozilla is about to prove you wrong.

At the Mobile World Congress, Mozilla announced a partnership with Chinese chip designer Spreadtrum Communications, which will enable OEMs to deliver smartphones for cheaper than $50.

“We’re working with them to break through the $50 barrier, which is hard,” Mozilla Chief Technology Officer Brendan Eich said in an interview.

“This is going to be for a set of [sales] channels in Asia that do not involve operators.”

In Indonesia, Polytron already plans on making and promoting Mozilla’s low-cost Firefox phones, and carriers Telkomsel and Indosat plan on selling the devices.

Higher Specs

Mozilla has partnered with companies such as Alcatel and ZTE in the past to deliver Firefox phones that fall into what’s considered the “low-end” smartphone category. Last year, ZTE introduced the first ever phone running on Firefox OS, the ZTE Open, before being quickly followed by Alcatel and its One Touch Fire.

But now, Alcatel and ZTE have just launched upgraded models of their devices to deliver more processing horsepower for Firefox OS, delivering the first “high-end” devices to Mozilla’s HTML5-based mobile operating system.

At MWC, Alcatel unveiled three new Firefox OS devices, the One Touch Fire S which features a 1.2GHz quad core processor and a 4.5 inch 960×540 screen, the One Touch Fire C which features a 1.2 GHz dual core processor and a 3.5 inch 480×320 screen, and the One Touch Fire 7, which is a Firefox tablet slated for release later this year.

Meanwhile, ZTE will be launching two of its own new Firefox phones, both of which feature 1.2 GHz dual core processors, and either a 4 inch 800×480 screen or a 3.5 inch 480×320 screen.

A new Mozilla partner debuted at MWC too. Chinese phone maker Huawei stepped up to announce the Y300, its first Firefox OS phone. It features a 4-inch 800×480 screen, dual-core processor, 512MB RAM, a 5-megapixel rear-facing camera, a 0.3-megapixel front-facing camera, and Firefox OS 1.1.

Countries such as Hungary, Venezuela, Colombia, Brazil, and Greece were the first to experience what Firefox OS has to offer and with the launch of Mozilla’s $25 devices, plus the higher spec phones, we can expect to see them appear in more emerging markets soon.

These low-cost smartphones could signal the demise of feature phones, as consumers are more likely to buy a low-cost smartphone than a feature phone at the same price.