Pepsi (yes, the soft drink) is getting into the hardware market in China. The company has announced that it is working with partners within the country to produce a line of smartphones and accessories for the Chinese market within the next few months.
The company is not looking into manufacturing its own hardware, and is instead licensing its brand out to a local manufacturer. A spokeswoman for the company said that this is similar to “recent globally licensed Pepsi products which include apparel and accessories.”
While PepsiCo did not reveal anything about the upcoming smartphones, Mobipicker has discovered something called the Pepsi P1. The internals aren’t particularly spectacular, featuring a a 5.5-inch 1080p display, MediaTek MT6592 clocked at 1.7GHz. 2GB RAM and 16GB internal storage. It does have a decent 13-megapixel rear and 5-megapixel front cameras, all backed by a 3000 mAh battery. The Pepsi P1 will apparently run on Android 5.1.
The leak also cites the price of Pepsi’s smartphone at RMB 1,299, which puts it at about RM860. Considering the specifications and price point, it looks like it will belong in the same category as Xiaomi and Meizu.
Pepsi is supposedly launching the P1 on 20 October, which is next Tuesday. There could potentially be more devices on the way, considering that the initial announcement cited a line of smartphones instead of just a one-off deal.
[Source: Reuters, Mobipicker]
