14 DAY TRIAL // Xenitis Group, an Indian company that produces electronics and motorcycles, announced the release of a new mobile phone that will have a retail price of 499 Indian rupees (INR or Rs.), meaning only 12 USD or 7.5 Euros. Besides this ultra-cheap handset, the company also said it wanted to introduce other 4 mobile devices that would have prices between 500 and 2000 INR.
Although on Xenitis' official website we can see three mobile phones listed, there are absolutely no details about them (name, features etc), so we assume the new 499 INR handset has not yet appeared in official images. Therefore, we don't know yet how it looks like or what features it packs. Anyway, for a price that low, users shouldn't expect too much from the new phone. But as long as the handset can make and receive calls at a decent quality, the $12 price is, nevertheless, a good one.
Quoted by Business Standard, Mr. Santanu Ghosh, chairman of Xenitis, declared: "Our aim is to revolutionize the mobile handset market by introducing affordable handsets with all key features. We hope to tap the market with our affordable handsets. We are already getting good response from handset retailers due to low price and extra features. We also have plans to come up with improved features including dual SIM Card in the next phase. We have floated a new company, Xenitis Telecommunications, for our venture in mobile handset manufacturing."
The new Xenitis phones, including the 499 INR one, will be available by the end of 2008 in West Bengal. The company says it intends to manufacture 160,000 handsets per month, so in the future its mobile products will probably be available all around India.
Xenitis is known in India for trying to come up with very affordable products. For example, the company has a notebook, named "Xuva XC 200", which is price at only 14,990 INR (about $360), and a scooter, named "UFO 0150", priced at 34,990 INR ($830).