Google has no plans of dropping its ambitious Android One project and will continue work with existing and new partners to expand its reach,, vice president of product management, said. Some fear that the failure of the first set of smartphones on Google’s Android One platform in India may force the search giant to drop the project. Speaking to ET, Sengupta, however admitted that the search giant had learnt a lot since the launch in September last year, which will help improve future offerings. Sengupta oversees product strategy for Android One, Android for Work, and Google Chromebooks. Edited excerpts:We as Google want to make sure we're serving our next billion users well. One of the big countries which is a huge focus for us is India. This is the context in which we launched Android One and we continue with it. It is an effort for us to introduce good quality hardware and make sure that the phones in the market run on the latest version of Android, updated on a regular basis. Along with this are other things like Youtube Offline, which we launched along with Android One, or for that matter Maps Offline which we announced and will come to the market later this year. You will see us make several announcements across our product line to make sure that our product offerings really cater to next set of users coming online, largely through smartphones.No, we're not backing away from the program. We remain pretty committed to it. Android One is now in seven countries. Overall, we continue to work with OEMs (original equipment makers) across the board, local and large OEMs for bringing Android One's value proposition to many more markets. We are also thinking about specific phones for specific markets. We think of ourselves as more of a catalyst to the ecosystem. Android One is a very small part of Android, which is also what Google pushes.When Android One was launched, nobody was offering or talking about updates or OTA (over-the-air) software updates. But now, you will find that most OEMs and vendors are talking about Lollipop, and updates to the latest Lollipop. So, we're happy with the kind of change that we've been able to bring about in the whole ecosystem.If you look at the initial set of devices that were launched in September, they were very similar though there were nice differences between the devices. You will see us bringing in more phones with OEMs. We're not an OEM, so we're not in the same game as OEMs. We're a platform provider, so we work with our partners to advance the point of view around OTAs and updates. We're now in the process of rolling out our second update - Lollipop 5.1.1 - to all Android One users.We've learnt a lot from the initial round with our partners and they have learnt in terms of device availability, in channel and others. Overtime, as we work with our partners we will keep working on making sure that we do things much better.Initially, when we had launched, people couldn't buy them in all channels, that is something that we need to address. In our future (launches) with our partners, we want to make sure that we're truly available everywhere.Within Google, we're very happy with the progress of Android One. We will continue to take a lot of learnings and keep doing it better in every market that we go to. In India, when we do the next set of devices and launches, you will find us doing that better.For us, it’s not important to have a device in the market every three weeks, in the India context, where 1200 devices were launched last year. We also support those devices and work on those where we can be a catalyst and move the overall Android ecosystem forward in a way that helps and benefits our users.Many a times, we do stuff that is not about volumes but it’s about advancing a point of view. Our goal here is to make sure that our end users are adapting to mobile experience and the next billion users have a good and compelling mobile experience.I don't want to lift the curtain on some exciting partner announcements when they come. But, we're looking forward to a lot of stuff that is coming through the rest of the year. Our initial set of devices also carried the Android One branding and the packaging. We're basically telling users there's a particular brand promise of Android One, which the branding reflects.A lot of these people are actually working with us. Globally, we're working with close to 20 OEMs that are shipping Android One phones.India market, especially on the smartphone side, is very dynamic. It’s in a state of great flux. Not only are there global players, but Indian players who have become global and a lot of Chinese players landing in the market. Even when I talk to people in the industry, nobody really knows exactly how the market is going to play out. One quarter you will see one person (company) doing well, another quarter another will do well.It’s a tough market for anyone. But in some sense, for us it’s important talking to our partners closely, looking at users closely and trying to figure out how we can influence the market. Going back, one of the things we're happy about in this case is OTAs. This is not something manufacturers cared about before we launched Android One.There are some fairly unique challenges. The next billion users don't have the same disposable income that the first billion users have had. Connectivity continues to be a challenge for many of these people. Language is also a challenge, especially in India where we're starting to quickly run through the number of users who are familiar with English and now we're starting to get into more regional languages.We at Google are working with our ecosystem and developers have to do a lot more to cater to these changing needs. Android One is a part of it, but the story is bigger. We need to a lot more to customize and localize our products more effectively - which means more languages, local content - which we will continue doing.There’s an interesting study which reveals that a lot of the people buying their second phones in India are buying more expensive phones, so the market for $100 to ?$?200 phones is increasing faster than the market for $70-120 phones. Therefore, for Android One, you will see them at all prices and at different ranges with our partners.