WITH a touchscreen display, Internet connection, front and rear camera lenses and dual phone number function, a new handset costing just 26 pounds (US$44) is set to take the mobile market by storm.

    Launched last month, the Indian-made Karbonn A50S hopes to rival market leaders — iPhone and Samsung Galaxy — at a fraction of the cost.

    The low-cost smartphone is officially only available to domestic customers in India currently. But it can be used on most networks with a pay-as-you-go SIM card.

    The Karbonn A50S shares many functions of handsets costing many times more. It has a touchscreen display, it connects to the Internet, uses WiFi, can download apps, takes photographs and makes voice calls and text messages.

    It also has the rare feature of two SIM-card slots, which enables the user to swap between two networks and two phone numbers.

    And as it runs on Android, the Google-owned operating system, it comes with all the usual Google services, including Gmail and Google Maps.

    The bargain Indian phone will lead consumers to question why they pay hundreds of pounds for their phones and expensive contracts with network providers, when the raw components are so cheap.

    Apple’s latest iPhone, the 5S, costs 549 pounds in the United Kingdom and the Samsung Galaxy S5 costs the same. Even Motorola’s more basic Moto G smartphone costs 125 pounds.

    The Karbonn A50S is one of a new breed of cheap smartphones that will start flooding the U.K. and European market over the coming months, experts warn.

    Carolina Milanesi of consumer research firm Kantar Worldpanel said Western nations, including the United Kingdom, are only just waking up to the potential of smartphone technology, which has been cheap for several years.

    The Karbonn A50S mainly uses previous generation hardware, although it is still a highly competent handset. It runs the last but one version of Android, which is also used by handset makers Samsung, HTC and many others.

    And while the 3.5-inch touchscreen is small for a modern smartphone and does not provide high-definition display, the dual-core processor — the chip that controls the phone — is as fast as many other handsets.

    (SD-Agencies)