This year is bidding to be the year of the budget smartphone, heralding a shift in the balance of power in the global mobile telephony sector.
The Mobile World Congress in Barcelona has plenty of devices costing less than 200 euros (265 dollars), and there are said to be smartphones using the new Firefox operating system put out by
internet browser specialist Mozilla for just 100 euros.
Apart from revolutionizing the entire mobile market for manufacturers, prices at this level would open up mobile internet to billions of new users.
Smartphones have a market share of just 17 per cent - meaning that fewer than one in five mobile users have one, Cesar Alierta, CEO of Spain's Telefonica said in Barcelona. And this figure reveals a glaring divide between rich and poor.
In Western Europe a third of all mobiles are smartphones, whereas this drops off sharply in the developing world to just 6 per cent. But this is about to change.
Market analysts are now predicting that by 2015 a third of the global population will be using a phone capable of accessing the internet. This implies that most of the growth will come from China,
Latin America and Africa.
It is estimated for example that smartphone take-up in South America could triple from its current level of 14 per cent. China's largest mobile phone operator China Mobile saw data traffic almost triple last year.
Phones that are relatively inexpensive are particularly successful in these markets. For this reason the first budget price Firefox smartphones are hitting the market in Latin America.
The Mozilla system means that the hardware requirements are not particularly high, and the costs are correspondingly low.
For Nokia the initial target market for the new low-price smartphones from its Lumia range is Asia - a long way from its Finnish base.
Nevertheless Nokia does have a price list for Europe. The cheapest model, the Lumia 520, is listed at 199 euros in Germany, including levies.
By comparison, Apple's cheapest iPhone costs 399 euros, while the top of the range, the iPhone 5, is listed at 679 euros and upwards.
The question is whether providers like Apple will now be compelled to lower their prices.
They will certainly be under increasing pressure in the view of Nikolaus Mohr from business consultants Accenture. "The advantage that providers like Apple had a year ago is gone," Mohr says.
He notes that brand loyalty in this market is low, "with the exception of Apple."
Annette Zimmermann of US IT research and consultant company Gartner also believes the iPhone maker remains in a class of its own.
"If Apple does indeed bring out a cheaper smartphone - as is being speculated - they will definitely link it to new services or offers that ensure new revenue flows," she said.
"They still enjoy the highest margins. Why should they cut their own throats?" Zimmermann asked.
In any case, consumers have shown that they are prepared to spend money on mobile communications even in times of economic crisis.
Vodafone CEO Vittorio Colao noted in Barcelona that he had said previously people would rather give up alcohol, cigarettes, sex and chocolate than their mobile phone.
And in fact there has been limited negative impact on this market from the economic situation.
New providers like Huawei, which have carved out their strong market positions with "bread-and-butter" smartphones, are now staking out a bigger claim at the upper end of the market.
And the change is evident. A few years back Huawei and ZTE operated from containers and tents at the Mobile World Congress.
They are now housed in huge stands on the new congress site, right alongside traditional names like Samsung and Nokia.