Pepsi Co. announced last Monday that it is planning to launch its own line of smartphone in the hopes of drawing more customers to buy their products, a Reuters report stated.
According to the report, the news about Pepsi's smartphone was first delivered Oct. 9 by tech blogging site Mobipicker.
The news was found in the Chinese website Weibo, but no other details were revealed until a follow-up Oct. 11 post by the same tech blog, which confirmed that the food and beverage company is indeed working on a smartphone that will be presented on Oct. 20 in Beijing.
Based on the leaked information, the device is currently called "Pepsi P1" and has a 5.5-inch display with 1080p resolution.
It will run on a 1.7Ghz MT6592 SoC processor with 2 GB RAM and 16 GB internal storage capacity.
As for the device's camera, it will feature a 13-megapixel rear cam and a 5-megapixel selfie shooter. The unit, expected to run on Android 5.1 OS, could cost around $205.
While Pepsi may now be teaming up with a licensing partner to include mobile phones in their market, it has no plans of joining the smartphone manufacturing industry, a spokeswoman for the company told Reuters by email.
Pepsi did not disclose its licensing partner for the smartphone but Mobipicker speculates that China's Shenzen Technology Co. could be the manufacturer of the phone.
The Pepsi smartphone will only be available in China and the marketing strategy is much like Pepsi's other internationally licensed products such as apparels.
According to U.S. News, Pepsi's smartphone efforts give them an opportunity to introduce many of their products to the Chinese market by making their logo more recognizable when placed on mobile phones.
International Data Corporation's research manager, Ramon Llamas, also said, according to the same report, that it is possible that the company may sell soda coupons via "calling card minutes."
