Meet the world’s third largest mobile OS, It’s an Indian Push …
If you had to name the world’s three biggest mobile operating systems, you’d definitely name Android and iOS. But what’s the third biggest?
It’s not BlackBerry, that operating system is dead. And it’s not Windows Phone, which is dead too. The answer is KaiOS, a lightweight OS for internet-connected feature phones.
You’ve probably never heard of KaiOS, but it’s the third biggest mobile OS around.
But KaiOS is currently the third most popular mobile operating system with 100 million users worldwide, KaiOS is quickly growing in India, Brazil, Indonesia, and other regions ready for internet access at a lower price point.
It’s specifically targeted at India, where it’s become the country’s second-most-popular mobile OS.
Competing against the twin titans of mobile is extremely difficult, and even a giant like Microsoft couldn’t do it.
So what is KaiOS, and how did it grow to third place when so many other mobile operating systems failed?
The story of KaiOS begins with Jio, an Indian telecom provider started in 2016 as a subsidiary of the telecom giant Reliance. Jio was revolutionary, offering free voice calls forever and unlimited mobile data for the month at a minimal charge.
But Jio realized that 500 million Indians didn’t have smartphones, which were often out of their price range, and that this was limiting Jio’s growth. So in 2017, Jio announced the Jio Phone, a lightweight feature phone that was effectively free — you’d pay a 1499 rupees deposit but get it back after 2 years.
The Jio Phone needed an operating system, but Android even Android’s lightweight Go variant demanded smartphone specs and features like a touchscreen. So Jio turned to an upstart operating system called KaiOS, designed to offer an app-based, internet-powered experience for feature phones. KaiOS would be pre-installed on all Jio Phones
KaiOS was built atop Firefox OS, a previous attempt to create a mobile OS for developing countries
[ Mozilla, the creator of the Firefox browser and then Firefox OS, realized that Android and iOS apps are too bulky for lightweight phones and had to be downloaded, while websites are lightweight and load instantly.
It’s a failed experiment and altogether a different story — will be posted soon]
KaiOS picked up the old code and created a new operating system that was still web-based but now worked for touchscreen-less feature phones.
And instead of trying to fight for Android’s slice of the pie, KaiOS was expanding the pie, going for the market — feature phones — that Android would never get into. (While low-end Androids might be cheap, they still can’t match the Jio Phone.)
KaiOS’s second smart move was realizing that people demanded apps like WhatsApp and YouTube.
So it partnered with Google to create custom-built versions of apps like Google Search, Google Maps, YouTube, and the Google Assistant for KaiOS; these apps presumably had a better user experience than just loading the mobile website.
Till the end of Nov-21, about 100 million units of Jio phones are sold across India which states the demand and growth of the third largest mobile OS and KaiOS is also part of many feature phones in developing countries as stated.
Curious to check KaiOS phones?
Here are the best KaiOS phones with their countries:
- Alcatel Go Flip 2 (U.S.A, Canada)
- JioPhone 2 (India)
- HMD Global Nokia 8110 (most countries except for the U.S.A.)
- Cat B35 (Europe)
Source: Swipe To Unlock, A must-read book for every student or business enthusiast who wants to understand the trending tech and current operations in digital businesses.
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