Kenyan-made Smartphones Set to Debut in the Market on October 30th
Kenyan-made cellphones are expected to enter the market this month, according to an exclusive Techweez report from last month.
Eliud Owalo, the ICT Cabinet Secretary, has come out in the last 10 days to corroborate this, saying the date is fixed on October 30.
At a tech conference in Kigali earlier in the week, CS Owalo made the first mention of this. He told BD yesterday and corroborated the information. There have been some difficulties for the government endeavor. The debut date was first planned by CS Owalo for the month of August, but he later moved it to September in a TV interview.
Kenyans are hoping that the penultimate day of October won’t make their country’s smartphones appear to be vaporware as the month comes to an end. a product that is advertised but never made available.
The price of the produced in Kenya smartphone will be $40 (or roughly KES 6000). It is produced in Konza by three businesses working together under the approval of the Kenyan government. 210,000 phones per month are anticipated to be produced in the Konza factory.
According to our examination of comparable projects overseas, the Kenyan phone will retail for about the same amount as the Nile X. Egypt’s successful effort to manufacture a domestic smartphone in the nation is the Nile X. However, the phone will be slightly pricier than the Chinese-made Neon Ray 2 currently sold by Safaricom.
Smartphones Made in Kenya to Close the Digital Divide
The launch is anticipated to help close the digital divide by increasing smartphone access in the nation. There are almost 4 billion smartphone users worldwide. However, Sub-Saharan Africa has the majority of non-smartphone users. Only 17% of people in Sub-Saharan Africa were smartphone users by the end of 2022.
The number of smartphone users in Kenya increased by 4.4% in the most recent quarter, reaching 30,793,395. The launch of the inexpensive smartphone built in Kenya is anticipated to accelerate the upward trend.
