Kenya: Safaricom partners with Jamii Telecom and Chinese TeleOne for its low-cost smartphone manufacturing plant
June 22nd 2023
The Kenyan government wants to accelerate the adoption of smartphones in the country in line with its digital transformation ambitions. According to the regulator, smartphones represent only 46.9% of the 63.3 million mobile phones connected to the national telecom network.
Kenyan telecommunications firm Safaricom has teamed up with rival Jamii Telecommunications and Chinese firm Shenzhen TeleOne Technology to set up a smartphone manufacturing plant in Kenya. This was revealed by Stephen Kiptiness, administrative affairs manager at Safaricom, in a recent interview with Business Daily .
“ The consortium is in the process of finalizing the details of the investment. I understand that the manufacturing should start in the next two months… Once the manufacturing process has started, it will be a matter of time. I don’t think it takes six months for the final product to be sold at retail ,” Kiptiness said.
It was last May that Safaricom unveiled plans to launch a smartphone assembly plant in Kenya. The factory should assemble between 1.2 million and 1.4 million smartphones per year. These devices will cost around $50.
The project responds to Kenyan President William Ruto’s ambition to provide affordable, locally-made smartphones to the people. Better accessibility to these gadgets is necessary to facilitate the adoption of information and communication technologies (ICT) in Kenya where the government aims to put digital transformation at the service of socio-economic development.
According to statistics from the Communications Authority (CA), Kenya has 29.7 million active smartphones, or 46.9% of the 63.3 million mobile phones connected to the network. The smartphone penetration rate is 60.2% compared to 68.1% for feature phones. However, the actual numbers are less significant as users own multiple phones.
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