Indian telecommunications company Spice Ltd aims to sell 10 million units of its sub-US$20 handset this year – the same target Apple has set for its high-profile €399 iPhone device – according to an International Herald Tribune report. Launched at the Mobile World Congress last month, the ‘People’s Phone’ has no screen and is marketed by Spice as ‘just a phone.’ The 10 million sales target in the first year would give Spice about a 1% share of the global market in 2008. Spice claims to already have orders for about 1 million of the phones – manufactured by ZTE – and says interest has emerged from Mexico, Africa and Indonesia, as well as Europe.

The report states that Spice is well placed to achieve this goal in light of its presence in the Indian market, a region with only 21% mobile penetration according to Wireless Intelligence. The company is also a GSM operator in the country. Although Spice is the first known phone manufacturer to drive down handset prices to below US$20, the concept of ‘emerging market’ handsets is a strategy that many players, including Nokia, LG, Motorola and Samsung, have strongly adopted.