Google’s Android One initiative reaches Turkey in latest market expansion

Sundar Pichai announcing Android One at Google I/O last year

Ten months after Sundar Pichai announced Android One at Google’s I/O developer conference last year, the program to bring quality and affordable smartphones to developing markets is expanding outside of Asia for the first time. Android One’s latest expansion into Turkey marks the seventh market for the program as it moves into Europe.

General Mobile will offer the first Android One smartphones, the company shared today, albeit at a higher price than Google has targeted for other Android One hardware…

Re/code notes that General Mobile’s Android One offering is priced at around $260, which more than doubles Google’s target price for hardware under the program.

Still, the price point dwarfs the cost of competing smartphones in the nation, measuring about a fourth the cost of flagship hardware. Android One hardware also comes with a promise of specifically receiving automatic Android updates for up to 2 years.

Android One’s entrance into Turkey comes just over a year after a short episode of censorship played out when the country temporarily banned access to Google’s YouTube service in an effort to thwart distribution of a video. The initiative’s goal, of course, is to connect more people that otherwise may not be able to afford access to modern hardware.

[tweet https://twitter.com/generalmobile/status/598035129659949056]

Android One has so far made its way into markets in Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Nepal, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka less than a year since it first launched.