It will rain android phones in 2010: Is the Smartphone revolution finally arriving in India?

While Smartphones have been picking up in other developed economies, India which has one of the biggest and fairly advanced mobile networks (500 million subscribers), still lags behind when it comes to Smartphone adoption and penetration. Although  many Smartphones are available in India, but still the adoption has been slow,  mostly due to 25K+ pricing.

That may soon change. This is especially true of Android phones, which may be significantly lower priced due to it being a freely available OS, and which thus pose a significant threat to iPhone or Blackberry or the Nokia N series/ E-series when it comes to personal adoption.

Till recently, and to an extent to date, there is limited choice of android based phones in India and even worldwide. HTC launched the first HTC android phone HTC Magic in June 09  and since then have also launched HTC Hero and the lower priced HTC Tattoo recently. 

Samsung has launched Samsung Galaxy and plans to launch low priced devices (sub 10 K) sometime in 2010. Similarly other major vendors like Motorola and Sony Ericson are expected to follow suit offering their low-priced android Smartphones.

The greatest hype and expectations have been generated by Acer who have announced that they will be launching Android handsets in India soon (as soon as this month). With the expertise and experience that Acer brings from the laptop to the handset segment and the fact that many Indians do use and trust the Acer brand, it will be interesting to see how the low-priced Acer android phones (10K-20K) change the dynamics.

And then one should not forget HTC, who it seems will be launching a number of good looking and feature rich phones in 2010. As per these leaked screenshots and specifications, some of this are very exciting and worth waiting to say the least.  Of course some of these may not actually be in the pipeline or even if they are launched may not make their way to India, but the android Smartphone scene seems to be getting hotter by the day.

Lastly, let one not forget the rumoured Google Handset . If , and when , it arrives, it could be a game-changer. so, I at least, am terribly excited by this new range of handsets- giving one both more choice and lower prices.

Of course handsets is just one part of the picture and the other crucial detail is the health and ecosystem of the applications available for the Smartphone. With android marketplace still not matured enough, iPhone may justifiably win on that point, but not for long.

How do you plan to be part of the Smartphone revolution?  Have you already bought an android handset or are you still waiting for more and better options to materialize? If so, you may not have to wait for long!