You might pay $75 for dinner for two, a pair of sneakers, or wireless earbuds in 2025. But a $75 smartphone? That sounds almost too good to be true. Yet, that’s how much the recently announced HMD Key costs. Its price is well below anything on our list of best budget Android phones. More surprisingly, it’s not the only brand-name handset in the sub-$100 price bracket.
No Thanks, Keep Reading
We’re not saying a $75 smartphone is good or worth buying. However, the existence of Android phones this cheap boggles the mind. How is it possible to make one? What corners must be cut, and are their manufacturers making a profit?
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What phones can you buy for under $100?
Lots of options, lots of caveats
The phones above cost $100 or less
Sub-$100 Android phones are nothing new. They typically fall into one of two categories: refurbished brand-name models sold by third-party sellers or generic, no-name phones from China. In both cases, you’re looking at phones with questionable reliability, low-end specs, and likely no warranty or support.
The $75 HMD Key is different. This new model launched in the UK, Australia, and New Zealand on January 2, 2025, and comes from a known brand. We also have the Nubia Music 2 in the same category. It went on sale in Malaysia in early 2025 at about $88. In the US, you can find the Moto E14, Blu G34, and Xiaomi Redmi A3. The 2024 models are about the same price, albeit with limited carrier compatibility.
How do you make a phone cost under $100?
Cutting as many corners as possible
The cheapest phones are made with the cheapest parts, and one of the most expensive components is the SoC (System-on-Chip). The high-end Snapdragon 8 Elite costs around $200, according to estimates, which explains why only the best Android phones have it. MediaTek SoCs are a popular, cheaper alternative, but these have been going up in price and may now cost up to $155 for high-end models.
Many ultra-affordable Android phones rely on cheaper Unisoc SoCs. Their prices aren’t publicly available but might hover below the $20 mark, judging by this listing for the Unisoc T618 used in the 2021 Samsung Galaxy Tab A8. Memory is also relatively expensive, but not overly so. At Digikey, a 2GB RAM chip costs about $11, and 32GB of cheap eMMC storage costs $13. Low-spec display and camera modules cost under $10 on Alibaba.
I cannot say how much phone makers pay for parts, but looking at these listings, it can’t be much. I’m confident a big company buying in bulk can get a better deal.
Minimal marketing and advertising investments
Every year, Samsung spends billions on advertising its products in the US. I’m willing to bet that affects how much its phones cost, and it isn’t the only marketing expense the company must account for. Samsung keeps physical shops open and pays its referral partners to bring shoppers to its online store.
In contrast, HMD won’t spend much (if anything) advertising a $75 phone. You’re most likely to find out about it by reading a favorite tech website, browsing the company’s online store, or scrolling social media.
Minimal software support, preinstalled apps
High-end Android phones promise up to seven years of software updates. Some have custom software skins that add extra features, like Samsung DeX. All this costs money, so you won’t get that kind of commitment with a low-end handset. A phone so cheap is likely to stay at the same Android version it launched with. In the best case, you’ll receive quarterly security updates for two years, as with the HMD Key.
While not getting the software you want, a cheap phone may give you software you don’t want. It’s common for budget Android phones to come preloaded with third-party apps and games, or at least with shortcuts to such. I’d wager that money changed hands for these apps and games to appear there. They may be free but could offer paid subscriptions and in-app purchases to generate revenue for their developers.
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Do companies profit from super cheap phones?
Or are they playing the long game?
When a company launches a sub-$100 phone, there’s only so much money it can make from it. It may not make any profit, but this could be part of a long-term strategy.
For example, take the $88 Nubia Music 2. It’s a funky phone made for kids and teenagers, a valuable demographic coveted for its brand loyalty and influence on peers and adults. This could be someone’s first smartphone. That someone might consider a more expensive ZTE or Nubia model when the time for an upgrade comes.
Xiaomi is a good example of a company playing the long game. For years, it’s been committed to making no more than 5% profit on hardware. However, the company makes a variety of hardware, from phones and smart home devices to electric scooters and home appliances. That’s enough to build a product ecosystem, which Xiaomi can leverage to sell services, collect data, or show ads while keeping users loyal to its brand.
For a company like HMD, a $75 phone like the Key could help the company gain market traction. It’s been less than a year since the first HMD-branded phone went on sale, so the name could use a boost in popularity.
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The problem with Android phones below $100
Set your expectations low
Whatever the business strategy behind any super-cheap Android phone is, it’s best to expect little. On one hand, a new phone from a brand you’ve heard of may inspire confidence. On the other hand, the low-end hardware could be a recipe for disappointment.
The Unisoc chips are cheap because they’re based on outdated technology. The SC9832E SoC in the HMD Key uses four Cortex-A53 cores, an architecture Arm introduced in 2012. The Unisoc T606 in the Moto E14 and the Nubia Music 2 makes the jump to Cortex-A55 CPU cores, but still, that’s tech from 2017. The low amount of RAM and slow storage on these phones bog them down further.
To compensate for the lack of memory and processing power, phone makers turn to software. Some cheap phones like the HMD Key, Blu G34, and Moto E14 run Android 14 Go, which is optimized for devices with less than 2GB of RAM. Virtual RAM is also available, allowing the phone to use some of its storage as extra RAM. Despite all this, a sub-$100 phone is poised to be slow and potentially unreliable.
Who are these phones for?
A market for extremely cheap Android phones exists. The World Bank reports that 3.5 billion people worldwide live on less than $6.85 per day. For them, the cheapest Android phone would be an investment. Yet, that investment could give them broader access to education, information, and banking services, ultimately contributing to their well-being. While a $75 Android phone may not be for you or me, it could bring another billion people to the internet.
