HMD bundles Indian AI chatbot Indus on new smartphone for local market
Original: Finnish phone-maker HMD bundles Indian AI chatbot onto new smartphone in push to reach local market
Why This Matters
Tests regional AI adoption strategy through affordable hardware distribution in linguistically diverse emerging markets
Finnish phone maker HMD launched Vibe 2 5G smartphone preloaded with Sarvam's Indus AI chatbot. The ₹10,999 device features 22 Indic languages support and mid-sentence code-switching capabilities to target India's diverse linguistic market.
HMD partnered with Indian AI company Sarvam to preload the Indus chatbot on its new Vibe 2 5G smartphone priced at ₹10,999 ($114). The chatbot runs on Sarvam's 105-billion-parameter model and supports 22 Indic languages with mid-sentence code-switching between Hindi and English. HMD CEO Ravi Kunwar said the partnership aims to test consumer appetite for India-focused AI. The company plans to extend the integration to feature phones, where HMD holds 4% market share versus negligible smartphone presence. Indus has 293,000 downloads compared to ChatGPT's 43.9 million in India. Sarvam reportedly seeks $300 million funding at $1.5 billion valuation.