Pepsi unveils its 1st phone with 5.5-inch display in China

It was only last month when food and beverage company Pepsi revealed its plans to introduce a phone under its brand name, and now the company has taken the wraps off its first phone. The first Pepsi-branded phone comes in two variants - the Pepsi P1 and the P1s, and will initially be launched in China.

While both phones come with same specifications, the only difference between the Pepsi P1 and P1s is that the latter comes with FDD-LTE support for China Unicom.The phone though come with the Pepsi branding, it is manufactured by Shenzhen-based Scooby Communication Equipment Co and is sold via a crowdfunding campaign.

The new Pepsi phone is currently listed on crowdfunding website JD Finance (said to be China's answer to Kickstarter) and has been given to early bird backers at USD 78. The company intends to raise a capital of USD 46,9950 (3 million yuan) by December 3.

"If the phone successfully hits its funding goal of USD 46,9950 by December 3, it will officially launch at around USD 200 with a special FDD-LTE variant headed to China Unicom as the P1s," reports Daily Mail.

The new dual-SIM 4G phone features a 5.5-inch 1080p display, 13 megapixel rear camera, 5-megapixel front-facing camera, fingerprint sensor, and an octa-core MT6592 chipset paired with 2 GB of RAM. It runs Google's Android Lollipop-based OS, called dido.

The phone weighs 158 grams and includes a 3000 mAh battery.

Pepsi is only working with the licensing partner Scooby Communication to market a line of mobile phones and accessories in China. The company, however, has no plans to get into the mobile phone manufacturing business.

PepsiCo already has many licensees across a number of categories. Last year, it tied up with companies such as Danish luxury stereo and TV maker Bang & Olufsen and Italian shoemaker Del Toro for a range of products for its football campaign.