The company was launched by former Apple CEO John Sculley as Obi Mobiles in 2014. Sculley saw a gap in the market for well-designed budget handsets and got in contact with former Director of Industrial Design, Robert Brunner who came up with the raised screen design found on all Obi smartphones. Ammunition subsequently designed the chassis and operating system skin the phones run on, "Obi Lifespeed". Obi Mobiles started operations in India in July 2014. Following an unsuccessful launch, the company withdrew from India at the beginning of 2015 and relaunched the brand as Obi Worldphone shortly after. The newly branded company launched two of their pioneer low cost smartphones on August 27, 2015. Both models are based upon Android as their operating system. Their third phone, the MV1, was announced in February 2016, and was released to Asian, African, Latin American and European markets in March 2016. In July 2015, Obi had a 5.7% smartphone market share in the UAE, making it the company's strongest global market.
Products
SF1
Launched on August 27, 2015, this phone with a raised 5-inch touchscreen display with a resolution of 1080 pixels by 1920 pixels at a PPI of 443 pixels per inch. The phone comes with a self-developed fork of the Android Operating System called "Obi Lifespeed". The device also features Dolby Audio multi-channel audio, noise cancellation, and utilizes a Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 processor, an Adreno 405GPU, and a 3000 mAh battery. It can access 4G networks. The device comes in 32GB + 3GB / 16GB + 2GB combinations, and a choice of black or white. The initial retail price for the device is $199 and comes unlocked.
SJ1.5
This device was launched at the same time as the SF1, and also has a 5-inch touchscreen display, however a lower resolution, lack of 4G, and lack of some luxuries lends this phone a cheaper $129 retail price. The device is all plastics in a range of colors and comes with 16GB of storage and a 3,000 milliamps battery. Both the SF1 and SJ1.5 feature a dual SIM tray.
MV1
The MV1 has a 5” Gorilla Glass 3 display with 1280 x 720 resolution, it runs on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 212 processor, 2GB of RAM, and 16 GB of Storage. It features a dual SIM tray.
Partnerships
In 2016, Obi Worldphone partnered with Skullcandy in Vietnam to give away prizes with every pair of earbuds they sell, as part of their "Obi Worldphone Experience Day.
Awards
In 2015, Obi Worldphone's SF1 was voted the 5th best smartphone available in Vietnam in VNExpress' "TechAwards 2015".
