Indian smartphone vendor Micromax is reportedly gearing up to launch an Android Go smartphone this month in the country. Expected to be one of the first Android Go phones (if not the first), the Micromax phone will be priced around just INR 2,000.

According to a report in Factor Daily, Google has partnered with multiple Indian smartphone vendors like Micromax, Karbonn, Lava and Intex to release Android Go edition phones. Micromax will most likely be the first in line with an Android phone running on Android Oreo (Go Edition). The company is mulling a Republic Day (January 26) launch for the phone, a source told Factor Daily. Other Indian vendors will follow with their own Android Go phones in the weeks after.

While we already knew that Google was working with manufacturers globally to release Android Go phones, the expected price-tag of around INR 2,000 takes these phones to a whole new level of interesting. If this upcoming Micromax phone is indeed priced around 2K, it will bring a decent Android experience to whole new segment of the market.

Just yesterday, I had written about the upcoming Flipkart mobile sale, where two older Android phones are going to be sold at INR 2018 and how such a pricing was still a rarity in the Indian smartphone market. But now it looks like 2018 is going to completely change that.

To remind you, Android Go initiative was first unveiled by Google last year at the I/O developer conference. With this initiative, the company aims to offer a version of Android, which can work well with smartphones with low-end hardware like 1GB of less RAM and 8GB of less internal storage. Android Oreo (Go Edition) is going to be the first version of the Android Go operating system. It was launched just last month by the search giant at its big Google for India event. Android Oreo (Go edition) has been optimized from the ground-up to provide better performance, improved data management and more storage on the entry-level devices. Google has also developed new versions of several of its key apps as well as the Play Store to work well on these Go edition phones.

No specifics are known about these upcoming Android Go phones from the Indian phone vendors.

Apart from the Indian vendors, the likes of HMD Global are also working on Android Go phones and the company’s Nokia 1 is expected to be one such phone. Indian telecom operator Jio is also said to be thinking about releasing a version of its JioPhone with Android Oreo (Go edition) operating system.