Any guess, how much it costs a smartphone maker to build a phone, most of you will say CPU, memory, camera or the screen being the most expensive parts. But the correct option is licensing for the operating system. According to IntoMobile reports that ZTE is paying Microsoft about $27 for each Windows Phone it makes.
ZTE’s Tania smartphone will hit markets starting from next month and will be running Windows Phone 7.5 OS. The smartphone features a 4.3 inch screen with the same 800 x 480 pixel resolution that all Windows Phones are required to have, 1 GHz processor from Qualcomm, 5 megapixel camera, no front facing camera, which makes it no special phone except its killer pricing. This phone is currently sold by SFR at 270 euros without ZTE branding. That $27 per device is a lot of money, but it seems that smartphone maker is getting quite a bit for its money too. According to IntoMobile, that $27 licensing fee gets ZTE a list of the exact specs it needs to make a working smartphone running the OS.
The tip on the cost of licensing Windows Phone comes from the ZTE UK Portfolio Manager Santiago Sierra. He said that ZTE pays Microsoft between £15 to £20, with the average amount converted to USD working out to $27.02.
ZTE’s Tania smartphone will hit markets starting from next month and will be running Windows Phone 7.5 OS. The smartphone features a 4.3 inch screen with the same 800 x 480 pixel resolution that all Windows Phones are required to have, 1 GHz processor from Qualcomm, 5 megapixel camera, no front facing camera, which makes it no special phone except its killer pricing. This phone is currently sold by SFR at 270 euros without ZTE branding. That $27 per device is a lot of money, but it seems that smartphone maker is getting quite a bit for its money too. According to IntoMobile, that $27 licensing fee gets ZTE a list of the exact specs it needs to make a working smartphone running the OS.
The tip on the cost of licensing Windows Phone comes from the ZTE UK Portfolio Manager Santiago Sierra. He said that ZTE pays Microsoft between £15 to £20, with the average amount converted to USD working out to $27.02.
This sounds like a great advantage to Android, but currently Microsoft, Apple are already trying to sue manufacturers or pay them loyalty which equals the licensing costs of WP7.5. Until, Google can come up with a solution to protect manufacturers from paying loyalties to Microsoft and Apple, it will loose one of the biggest advantage of free OS over Windows Phone licensing costs.
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