Alibaba, China Telecom partner for release of rural shoppers-based mobile phones

The mobile phones, named “Tianyi Taobao Shopping Handsets,” will come installed with either the Mobile Taobao shopping app or the YunOS mobile operating system developed by Alibaba, depending upon the intended user base, alizila.com reports. Available in a range of models and prices from several manufacturers, the phones will have built-in software for purchasing discounted products from Alibaba’s Taobao Marketplace and buyers will also be eligible to receive four months of free 2G data service.

Alibaba Group is China’s largest ecommerce company and China Telecom is one of the country’s three major mobile carriers and had 186 million users at the end of 2014. Going on sale in the near future, 14 models of Tianyi Taobao phones will be available through China Telecom’s Tmall flagship store and at the carrier’s physical stores across rural China. Six models will be more expensive smartphones from Coolpad, Hisense and TCL with the Mobile Taobao app installed. Mobile Taobao is the most popular mobile shopping app in China with more than 200 million monthly active users.

Another eight models, made by lesser-known brands including Uniscope, Ctyon and Kingsun, will be sold at prices ranging from CNY 299 (USD 48) to CNY 699 (USD 113) and will run Alibaba’s homegrown YunOS, providing buyers with an Alibaba account for shopping and cloud-based storage, among other preloaded services.

The Tianyi Taobao handsets are mainly targeted at residents in third-and fourth-tier cities and rural areas, the companies said, the source reports. According to a report from Alibaba-affiliated Alipay, China’s underdeveloped broadband telecommunications infrastructure and the relatively high cost of computers have made shopping through smartphones popular in rural China. To reach this underserved market, China Telecom has been expanding its network of retail outlets in less-developed regions. The company had 15,000 retail outlets in rural China at the end of 2014.