Intel announces new low price chip offering to offset market gap in low-cost mobile devices

In response to the fast-rising China Mobile chip market, Intel announced a new low price chip product code-named Sofia in late 2013, Reuters reported March 3. The chip is officially on sale today. Sofia fills the gap in the mobile device market for Intel's chip products below 100 dollars.

"It took only 15 months to release it from PowerPoint to the official sale. "Aisha Evans Aicha Evans, managing director of Intel Platform Engineering, said.

Sofia fills the gap in the Low-cost smartphone and tablet market for Intel's chip products.

More than 20 companies have said they want to launch a device based on Sofia chips. Most of these products will be presented this week at the Global Mobile Congress (MWC), which is held in Barcelona, Spain.

With market share lagging behind Qualcomm and MediaTek, Intel has been taking a very aggressive and expensive promotional strategy over time. Since last year, Intel has provided "engineering research and development subsidies" to equipment manufacturers using its bay Trail chip. Although the company never disclosed how much it would subsidize for each of the Bay Trail chips, the company's mobile division lost $4.2 billion trillion in the last year alone, a loss of $3.1 billion trillion over 2013 years.

Intel believes Sofia will become the ideal fast-growing chip product, especially in the Low-cost smartphone market in Asia. The company has also made clear that it has no plans to provide the so-called "use subsidy" for Sofia this year.

The current version of the Sofia chip with 3G network baseband. The version with 4G network baseband will not be shipped until later this year.