Since last October, 268,000 smartphones assembled locally have been purchased by Kenyan consumers. The consortium responsible for producing these devices has successfully sold 80% out of the 330,000 phones they assembled, indicating a strong demand for such products in Kenya.
Eadak, an acronym for East Africa Device Assembly Kenya Limited, is a joint venture between Safaricom and Jamii Telecom, both prominent telecom operators in Kenya, alongside Telel, a phone manufacturer based in China, and Industrial Technology Training Company Limited. This facility has the capability to make three million mobile phones every year. The plan is to grow into making computer hardware as well as software locally too.
The Neon Smarta, which has a 5-inch display, 2GB of RAM, 32GB of ROM and supports 4G LTE, is the device chosen for the digital literacy program by government. It is assembled at a factory located within Konza Technopolis and sells them for a reasonable price tag capped between Kes 8000 to Kes 9000 each.