On Thursday, Google chief Sundar Pichai said at IIT Kharagpur that the entry level smartphones in India are priced very high and need to come down. He said that the prices should start from USD 30 so as to aid people in having an easier access to the Internet and avail digital services. He also said that the main focus of digital economy should be mainly on increasing local language support of digital development and also improve connectivity across regions in India.
Addressing 3,500 students and teachers at the IIT Kharagpur, he said, “I would love to see cheaper smartphones, entry level smartphones. I think really we need to bring the prices down even more, maybe at USD 30 level.”
He also added that Google was successful in rolling out many programs in India like, ‘Digital India’ with the help of public and private partnerships. Some examples are Railtel which offers free Wi-Fi at railway stations and also NCPI for digital payments.
He said, few years down the road India will be a global leader in technology and the best way to make sure of this is through Artificial Intelligence, that has already started in India and bringing machine learning to as many people as possible.
