Google invests $22 million in a feature phone operating system

The parent company behind the famous Android OS, Google, is investing millions of dollars in an operating system for feature phones.

In a quite interesting move, Google has considered investing in KaiOS, an operating system dedicated to the feature phones. The company behind the world’s largest mobile operating system will be investing as much as $22 million in a Series-A investment to KaiOS, a simplistic ARM-based operating system that is nowadays being used to power various feature phones including but limited to those from Nokia, Micromax and TCL.

As part of the investment, KaiOS would also be able to use different Google services like Google Search, Google Maps and more importantly the Google Assistant.

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“This funding will help us fast-track development and global deployment of KaiOS-enabled smart feature phones, allowing us to connect the vast population that still cannot access the internet, especially in emerging markets,” Sebastien Codeville, the CEO of KaiOS Technologies, told in a statement.

The strategic move would help Google make its place in the feature phone segment and at a later stage, might even help it in strategically defining the demographics of both these domains. KaiOS is a web-based operating system that has continued to improve its market position despite the ever-increasing dominance of Google.

The reports say that where as much as 1.6 billion Android smartphones were sold last year, a considerable number that is 400-500 million of feature phones also made it to the markets. In India, KaiOS is the second-most popular operating system.

News — KaiOS via TC, Image —BuzzFeed