Pepsi planning to market Android smartphone ‘P1’

The brand isn’t joining the gadget manufacturing business but PepsiCo is set to launch a new line of smartphone and accessories with the help of a trusted but still unnamed licensing partner in China. Pepsi won’t be making the phones itself, though, opting instead to license its brand to another company that’ll make Pepsi-branding phones and accessories.

The phone will only be available in China, something that ties into Pepsi’s recent venture in licensed products, which also include accessories and apparel.

This news give the mobile world a jolt, and obviously I can’t wait until Pepsi introduces the transparent “Crystal P1” model of the phone.

Technology website Mobipicker reported Sunday that the device would be called Pepsi P1 with “decent but not high-end specs”. As for its battery, it is said to sport a 3,000 mAh one for long battery life. Just like the majority of recently released smartphones, the Pepsi smartphone will run on Android 5.1 Lollipop. The P1 will also have a Pepsi app, which it probably plans to use for marketing to the hip young crown that would buy a cola phone.

It is believed that if the Pepsi smartphone takes off (if it ever does) then the next battle we will witness will be a Pepsi vs. Coke in the smartphone category.

In other news, sales of the Diet Pepsi have continued to reduce after its conventional aspartame sweetener was replaced by a safer one.

Pepsi is likely to enter into a deal with an Asian handset manufacturer to build the P1 smartphone, which would be released with the Pepsi logo and endorsement.

A leaked image shows what appears to be capacitive buttons below the screen (though they could be physical ones) and possibly a fingerprint sensor on the back, just below the camera.