South Africa to start building affordable smartphones

[Jamie McKane]

South Africa to start building affordable smartphones

In the world of smartphones, China has Huawei, Korea has Samsung, while the United States of America has Apple.

Long-time dark horse Africa is now taking centre stage with the announcement of the Mara phone project that is touted to take the smartphone business by storm.

[SANews]

 

[Willie Trombone]

South Africa to start building affordable smartphones

In the world of smartphones, China has Huawei, Korea has Samsung, while the United States of America has Apple.

Long-time dark horse Africa is now taking centre stage with the announcement of the Mara phone project that is touted to take the smartphone business by storm.

[SANews]

Mara why?

Unless we’re allowing the Chinese to open sweatshops here, how will this continent compete? Maybe this will be gvt subsidized?

Braver than I’d ever be to take on this low margin, high barrier to entry industry.

 

[ronz91]

Chinese make cheap devices already

 

[ekske1]

Lets not tackle the real reason we need "affordable", "tightening belt" or "bailouts". No, lets rather make plans over and around it

 

[JustAsk]

Lets not tackle the real reason we need "affordable", "tightening belt" or "bailouts". No, lets rather make plans over and around it

It's a private sector inisiative .

I suspect you're sitting with a bunch of Anc/Guavamint/Zuma/Juju/TIA/Ramaphosa/BEE cards ready to play.

 

[Randux]

Going to be hard to compete with China.

 

[ekske1]

It's a private sector inisiative .

I suspect you're sitting with a bunch of Anc/Guavamint/Zuma/Juju/TIA/Ramaphosa/BEE cards ready to play.

pfft. I'll just put full house down as african

 

[Swa]

Maybe we can finally get rid of 2G now seeing as Jannie has decided that you can only have 3G/4G and smartphone and not 3G/4G and dumbphone. But good grieve that name though.

 

[CAPS LOCK]

Will be fantastic if they succeed. Wish them well.

 

[Antelope]

8 months is a long time

 

[Milano]

“We are not just going to be a market for others but we are going to dominate others, which is what the Africa Investment Forum is all about,” Adesina said.

Wow, an amazing success story! ..Oh wait they haven't started yet.

What was their USP again?

 

[Johnatan56]

How exactly are they going to compete in a market where all the components are produced overseas? When companies like Xiaomi already operate at a 5% profit margin, what exactly are you bringing to a market that is already starting to/has reached plateau.

 

[Sl8er]

Long-time dark horse Africa is now taking centre stage with the announcement of the Mara phone project that is touted to take the smartphone business by storm.

 

[Willie Trombone]

I’m expecting new Johnny Walker and BMW competitors to spring up from our soils soon. This notion of expensive is a western paradigm.

 

[elf_lord_ZC5]

Cheap cellphone, darn, where you going to find reliable labour, never mind cheap labour.

Oh, wait, robots are cheap and super reliable, just need a Flunkey to answer the telephone.

 

[WaxLyrical]

I don't see them doing anything more than what Hisense does.

 

[Hemi300c]

Cheap shyte incoming

 

[Urist]

 

[TofuMofu]

It will fail just because of that name.

I don't want no Mara phone...

 

[Vrotappel]

It's a private sector inisiative .

I suspect you're sitting with a bunch of Anc/Guavamint/Zuma/Juju/TIA/Ramaphosa/BEE cards ready to play.

Really? Read the article again, slowly. Look for the words "African Development Bank".