Pepsi launching mobile phone in China

PepsiCo Inc. said this week it plans to launch a line of mobile phones and accessories in China in the next few months, a move that's both a bit of novel marketing and a sign of the rising commodization of the mobile phone market.

The company, best known for chips and soda, is working with a licensing partner to sell Pepsi-branded Android handsets that carry a 5.5-inch 1080p screen, 1.7GHz processor and 16GB of storage. The model is known as the Pepsi P1. It's expected to cost about $205.

PepsiCo spokeswoman Aurora Gonzalez compared the move to other branding deals the company has struck with makers of high-end headphones and shoes.

But Gonzalez wanted to make one thing clear: "Pepsi has no plans to get into the mobile phone manufacturing business."

Pepsi is sticking to what it knows.

What is less clear is whether Chinese consumers will buy it. The line of failed branded mobile phones is long. There was the HTC First, known as the Facebook phone because it carried the backing of the social media giant. The Motorola ROKR, known as the iTunes phone. The Kodak phone. And the Amazon Fire phone.

The mobile phone market is "basically Apple, Samsung and then you have everybody else," said Tuong Nguyen, a personal technologies analyst with research group Gartner.

Samsung had 21.9 percent and Apple stood at 14.6 percent of worldwide sales in this year's second quarter, according to Gartner. All other mobile companies had single-digit shares or less.

"Because it's such a competitive market, it's hard to make money," Nguyen said. "Regardless of the power of the Pepsi brand, it's going to be tough."

The Pepsi P1 was first reported by tech site Mobipicker, which said the phone was expected to debut Oct. 20.

Pepsi competitor Coca-Cola Co. did not return a call asking if it was getting into phones.