Android One was started by
Sundar Pichai, former product chief and current CEO of Google. Before Android One, it often took at least a year before the latest Android update arrived on non-Google devices. Pichai said that the initial set of devices shared common hardware because they were based on the reference platform, but an increasing range of devices were to be launched in the future.
Security and system updates were handled by Google for the first set of Android One devices, which featured
MediaTek's quad-core
MT6582 Mobile
System-on-Chip (Mobile SoC). In 2014, Android One phones initially rolled out in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Indonesia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and other South Asian countries. The first Android One smartphones were by the Indian brands
Micromax,
Spice and
Karbonn in September 2014, the second generation Android One smartphones were by Indonesia brands Mito Impact, Evercoss One X,
Nexian journey in February 2015 and the first Android One preinstalled with
Android 5.0 Lollipop. Other manufacturers including
QMobile have launched an Android One device named
QMobile A1, on 6 July 2015, in Pakistan. Android One launched in Nigeria in August 2015 with the Infinix Hot 2 X510 (1 and 2 GB RAM version) and became the first Android One in Africa. Infinix Hot 2 X510 was also exported to other African countries such as Egypt, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Morocco, Kenya, Cameroon, Uganda, and also Asian countries such as United Arab Emirates, Pakistan and Indonesia (2 GB RAM version only). Other manufactures are to follow gradually. In 2016,
SoftBank announced they would be the first carrier in Japan to introduce an Android One phone in the country, namely the Sharp 507SH which was released in late July 2016. On 25 May 2017, Turkish smartphone brand "General Mobile" released the next addition to their fully committed portfolio of Android One phones, the GM 6.
SoftBank soon followed by introducing the
Sharp X1 in Japan through its subsidiary telecommunications company,
Y!Mobile, on June 30. On 5 September 2017, Android One and
Xiaomi jointly announced the
Xiaomi Mi A1 as the first Android One device to be released globally in over 36 markets. In September 2017,
MVNO Google Fi introduced the first Android One device available in the U.S. with the Android One
Moto X4. In November 2017, Android One entered the German market with HTC with the
U11 Life. At the end of November 2017, SoftBank announced the addition of four new devices to its Android One lineup with Y!Mobile: the X2 (
HTC), X3 (
Kyocera), S3 (Sharp), and S4 (Kyocera). In February 2018,
HMD Global, the maker of
Nokia smartphones, announced that it had joined the Android One program.
Nokia 6.1,
Nokia 7 Plus, and
Nokia 8 Sirocco were among the first batch of Android One phones from HMD. In 2020, Xiaomi discontinued its only Android One lineup, the Xiaomi Mi A series, ending with the
Xiaomi Mi A3. == Features ==