The phone will be based on the Android operating system and run otherwise unspecified technology two to three years in advance of the mass market
A British-Israeli startup plans to sell a mobile phone from next month that will offer users unprecedented levels of technology and security. It will be priced between $10,000 to $15,000 and will have one focus: security. Sirin Labs AG said that it had raised $72 million in private funds to launch the device, which would be aimed at executives. It plans to open its first store, in London’s Mayfair, in May.
So when Sirin Labs launches its secure smartphone this May, The phone might still be successful, especially since the withering away of BlackBerry has left a vacuum none of the bigger brands have been able to fill.
“(Our) smartphone …brings the most advanced technology available – even if it is not commercially available – and combining it with almost military-grade security,” said Sirin co-founder and president Moshe Hogeg.
The phone will be based on the Android operating system and run otherwise unspecified technology two to three years in advance of the mass market, he said. Hogeg told Reuters the phone would sell for less than $20,000.
He believes thousands of executives in the United States and Europe will pay that sort of price, since the cost of being hacked could be more expensive in terms of information lost. Hogeg put the value of the global luxury phone market at about $1.1 billion, a fraction of total mobile phone sales. Most top end phones sold are more for status – regular phones with gold and diamonds.
Britain’s Vertu sells phones in that category from $10,000 to $300,000, while Apple’s iPhone 5 Black Diamond sold for $15.3 million. Sirin’s financing came from Israeli venture capital fund Singulariteam – which Hogeg co-founded and included backing from Kazakh investor Kenges Rakishev – and Chinese social networking company Renren.
The idea for the startup came about after Rakishev’s phone was hacked in 2013. He asked Hogeg why he couldn’t find a mobile phone that would ensure privacy and why new technology seen in tech shows and publications was not available in consumer devices. “There were no good solutions that combined high-end technologies with maximum security,” Hogeg said.