A few years ago if you had asked us what was the third most used mobile phone operating system , surely, we would have come up with several options. Maybe BlackBerry? Could it be Windows Phone? And Symbian from Nokia?
There came a time when all these names were forgotten and disappeared along with the telephones that carried them. Android and iOS had established their particular duopoly and, despite various attempts (such as Tizen or Firefox OS) to find an alternative, the market did not respond very well.
However, things have changed a bit. From emerging countries, a third way for the mobile world has begun to emerge naturally. Her name is KaiOS , she was born in 2017 and she is the ‘pretty girl’ of the American company KaiOS Technologies .
This platform is based on Linux and continues that philosophy of Firefox OS a bit. In other words, it tries to merge the power of a smartphone with the accessibility of a basic mobile phone. In fact, it drinks from Boot to Gecko (B2G), Mozilla’s experimental project that the firm finally abandoned in 2016.
In an operating system aimed at the so-called ‘entry phones’, simple and inexpensive terminals that are used mostly in countries where their consumers do not have much purchasing power. However, all mobiles that are governed by KaiOS would have cameras and would support WiFi, Bluetooh and GPS.
KaiOS would even have its own application store, in the style of Google Play or the App Store. Its name is KaiStore and the warehouse houses about 500 apps of all kinds and even mobile games.
Partners: the key to KaiOS growth
The real push for KaiOS came from February 2018, as the American company partnered with different partners to give its platform a boost. He began working with operators such as At & T, Sprint, T-Mobile or China Mobile, with manufacturers such as Doro, Micromax or HMD Global and with technology companies such as Facebook, Google or Twitter so that their services and tools were available for their operating system.
KaiOS would already have more than 150 million users worldwide . Its users come from emerging countries and have very modest terminals. Some of them sell for as little as $ 15, but they are capable of running essential apps like Google Maps, YouTube, WhatsApp, Facebook, etc. There is even a version of Google Assistant. There are more and more titles available in the aforementioned app store of the firm.
In India the success of KaiOS is undeniable . It has become the second mobile platform behind Android. In addition, it also has some popularity in countries such as Rwanda, Indonesia or Nigeria.
Curiously, the operating system has aroused the interest of what could be its biggest competitor in the market, as it is also an open source system valid for low-end smartphones. Last year Google participated as an investor in a $ 50 million Series B round.
