China: K-Touch, a Smartphone with Alibaba mobile OS

The creation of a Smartphone with its own mobile OS created by Chinese e-commerce site Alibaba has now been confirmed.

In early July, we mentioned that Chinese group Alibaba was currently developing their own mobile platform for Smartphone’s with this to push their services while also benefitting from the growth of the Chinese market.

The fact that they are aiming their device at the largest mobile telephone market in the world from within provides them with a privileged position, mostly protected from competing platforms, from which they can experiment with their cloud based mobile operating system that is able to directly connect clients with their e-commerce activities.

Towards the end of July, this strategy has now been confirmed by the company. They have today officially spoken about the existence of their first Smartphone built on this platform, the K-Touch, which will be quickly launched in China.


Chinese strategy, Chinese conception
Alibaba previously indicated that the handset would be sold for around 2000 to 3000 Yuan (between 200 and a little more than 300€) and that it would come with a range of cloud based applications allowing users to remotely store personal data and content in addition to browsing and instant messaging services.

According to the AFP, the conception of the mobile is Chinese, developed by the Beijing Tianyu Telecommunication Equipment Co., although it is powered by an NVidia mobile processor. Alibaba is also planning on releasing tablets that use their new mobile OS.

We can’t yet really say if this is a direct competitor to large platforms like Android, iOS, Symbian or BlackBerry OS as the development strategy is for the moment completely local, although the Chinese group hasn’t ruled out international distribution if this initial foray into the market proves successful.