Earlier this year Mozilla hired away Li Gong, MSN's highest-ranking executive in China, to increase adoption of the Firefox browser in China, where it now has a meager 1% share.

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Jolla, for instance, is going straight for China with its Sailfish OS, and Mozilla is initially introducing Firefox OS in Brazil via a partnership with Spanish telecoms giant Telefonica, along with other emerging markets.

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Since Firefox OS imposes fewer restrictions than Android, it is attractive to phone carriers who can more easily build their own services on top of Firefox OS. The strategy to go after less penetrated markets makes sense as large emerging markets such as India and China are already saturated with Android at the low end.

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