Slightly surprisingly, Vestel had a lot of digital signage monitors at IFA. Also, slightly surprising at IBC, the news that we got was about the company’s new smartphones that have been developed in-house although the company also had plenty of TVs and public displays. One of the reasons for Vestel’s entry into the market is that smartphones are the sixth highest value import into Turkey, we heard. There are two designs available in 5″ and 5.5″ diagonals, so four models are available. They will sell for TL649 ($290) up to TL899 ($400) and will use the Venus brand name. The phones will be sold in Turkey from 26th September and will run Android 4.4.
We, of course, had to ask about the Fatih project. It seems that the roll out of the touch displays is about to start. However, the tablet project has been difficult as the specification keeps changing – we heard that Vestel has made “close to 10” different designs so far as it tries to compete for the big project (10 – 11 million units potentially, for new readers).
