Vodacom South Africa launches $14 cloud-based smartphone

The cloud-based phone is manufactured by South African firm Mobicel and is being pitched as reducing the cost of smartphone access in South Africa, and to move more people over to 4G networks from 2G or 3G.

The Mobicel S4 4G Cloud Phone, to give it its full title, is essentially a thin-client device with 48MB RAM, 128MB ROM, a 2.8-inch screen and a 1000mAh battery. It leans on the cloud to run apps you usually need a proper smartphone for, such as YouTube, TikTok and Facebook, and Vodacom describes this as a ‘smartphone lite’ experience. We understand the device is not exclusive to Vodacom.

The key feature is the comparatively low price compared to even the most bare-bones smartphone – it will retail at R249, or US$13.93.

We’re told by a PR agency representing a firm called CloudMosa that the cloud functionality is thanks to a deal it did with Mobicel to include the former’s Cloud Phone technology on this device.

On its website, Cloud Phone is described as a ‘revolutionary technology’ that uses cloud computing to ‘transform the most basic traditional feature phones into smart devices.’

“The handset serves as a lightweight terminal connecting to a virtualized environment hosted in the cloud,” reads the website. “This setup shifts computational tasks to robust cloud servers, empowering low-end handsets to access widgets that were never before available on feature phones.”

Actions on the handset are transmitted to the cloud, where the rendering and processing occurs and the results are then streamed back to the device in real time, minimising the need for hardware grunt within the phone.

The Vodacom release refers to a report by the Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development from 2022, supported by Vodacom’s parent Vodafone, which argued that lowering the cost of devices is key to increasing access to smartphones, and also cites the Alliance for Affordable Internet estimating that a smartphone priced at R1,094.24 (US$62/€56) could cost almost 63% of the average monthly income across Africa. 

“As smartphone penetration continues to rise, with many South Africans now owning a smartphone, the digital divide remains a challenge, among those who still rely on 2G and 3G networks,” said Davide Tacchino, Managing Executive for Terminals at Vodacom South Africa. “At Vodacom, we remain committed to bridging the digital divide by providing affordable devices – which explains why we have introduced this cloud-based model to offer lite smartphone benefits to those who traditionally cannot afford them. The cloud phone will also help customers still anchored to 2G phones and not familiar with the touch screen experience, allowing them to appreciate a smooth transition to the data and application world.”

 “As technology continue to evolve, we must stay abreast of evolution, to ensure customers are not left behind. Our cloud-based phone is not just another phone, but a tool that enables access to the digital ecosystem. Through greater collaboration between governments, mobile operators and everyone across the value chain, we believe we can make strides to work together to lower 4G-enabled smartphones prices.”

The catch of course is that you’d need reliable access to the internet for it to work, but then that’s true of online apps on any device.

It’s a similar concept to cloud gaming, in which the substantial expense of a decent gaming PC could be circumvented by having the processing done in the cloud and essentially streamed back to a low-spec device at home.

It doesn’t sound like you’ll be getting a full-fat smartphone like-for-like experience with the Mobicel Cloud Phone, but the fact such a cheap device can do things like stream video and access social media on the go now does seem like a technological moment of note.

Top of the range smartphones are all about cramming as much processing power and other state of the art components under the hood, and flagship iPhones now cost in excess of £1000. In the future, perhaps technology like Cloud Phone will progress to the point where the line between high-end and low-end devices gets thinner, and it will be interesting to see what that does to the pricing dynamics of the device market.