Pepsi’s Making A Smartphone

d‘wise one
Chip-Monks
Published in
2 min readOct 12, 2015

Wait, what???

PepsiCo Inc, which has been long known for producing beverages, popular snacks and breakfast cereals, is apparently trying out something totally unanticipated.

Of late, have been speculations bouncing around about a surprising move on Pepsi’s part to get into the fast-evolving tech world with a smartphone. Theory upon theory piled up, and then Pepsi confirmed some of them by putting up a teaser image of the upcoming smartphone, nay phablet, on the Chinese social media website, Weibo.

Later, Pepsi’s spokesperson went on record stating, ‘We are pleased to share that Pepsi is working with a licensing partner to bring a line of mobile phones and accessories to market in China in the next few months.’

The appealing teaser image flaunts a 5.5-inch screen with 1080p resolution. Reports suggest that the device houses a 13 megapixel camera, is powered by a 1.7 GHz processor with 2 GB of RAM.

The device rumoured to be christened the Pepsi P1, might cost around USD 200.

Given their absolute inexperience in this line, Pepsi will be partnering with device manufacturers to source the design and produce the devices. To keep the mystery alive, Pepsi hasn’t revealed the licensing partners yet. What the soft drink giant has indicated though is that it is currently interested in the Chinese market, where the low cost, medium-spec phone could be wrung through the litmus test.

Partnering like this is not new to Pepsi — they’ve had several successful partnerships with apparel brands, footwear brands and even technology OEMs like Bang & Olufsen.

Thing is, many non-tech companies have earlier tried their hand at manufacturing or licensing smartphones under their brands, however it has not served them well. Kodak had tried it with their IM5 phone, Amazon launched their Fire Phone, even Bang & Olufsen had released phone models a few years back — yet they’ve all been unsuccessful.

The smartphone market is a lucrative market however it does require a humongous amount of effort, product differentiation and supportive infrastructure just to gain attention and to have people dip into their wallets. It takes nimble strategy and sustained focus to even gain traction in existing markets.

Delivering a brand-recognized quality device with impressive features at such a minimal cost, could be the USP of Pepsi’s new venture, and it might turn out to be a great hit in China. Let’s wait for 20th October to see what Pepsi offers to the Chinese markets.

Just for fun — 21st October is the date when Marty from “Back to the Future II” had come to the future and had drunk a Pepsi, Could this launch coincide with that celebration?

Originally published at Chip-Monks.

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