Three days ago, Vodafone revealed a new product in Mumbai, India designed specifically to serve the millions of mobile subscribers living in rural parts of the country with limit access to electricity.
The Vodafone VF 247 has an integrated solar panel so those living in such electricity-poor areas can take advantage of their abundance of sunlight. It’s at once a mobile phone and an FM radio receiver, complete with a built-in LED light.
The phone was designed with the Indian market in mind. Try not to faint as I tell you this: it doesn’t have a high-definition camera or the ability to integrate with an App store (deep breaths…). Are you still conscious? Good. Here’s the craziest part: Vodafone doesn’t care. The company has no plans to market the phone outside India. Vodafone is simply trying to provide an alternative meant to charge up to those with little, unpredictable or no electricity.
After eight hours of sunlight, the VF 247 can remain on standby mode for at least eight days or provide four hours of use before it must be charged again.
Marketing solely to India may be a wise business move for Vodafone: according to manufacturing.net, there are nearly 20 million people in India who are mobile phone subscribers. Building a strong relationship with those consumers could eventually lead to the marketing and selling of other Vodafone products to those same customers.














