The man behind Mobicel — South Africa's only successful smartphone brand

Product is still made in China. So not completely true to say it's really South african.
This is the same as buying a Chinese car and putting some fancy locally made badge on it.
 
DARoodt said:
Product is still made in China. So not completely true to say it's really South african.
This is the same as buying a Chinese car and putting some fancy locally made badge on it.
Click to expand...
"Over the past four years, many of Mobicel’s phones have been assembled at its production facility in Johannesburg."

from the article.
 
1am7h30n3 said:
"Over the past four years, many of Mobicel’s phones have been assembled at its production facility in Johannesburg."

from the article.
Click to expand...
The Mobicel phone I bought in lockdown was definitely NOT assembled or made in South Africa. I purchased it from Pick n Pay. It went into the bin around 2022 because it died.
 
Well done to him. Wonder what the future is like for Mobicel as more cheap Chinese phones are introduced to the market.
 
1am7h30n3 said:
"Over the past four years, many of Mobicel’s phones have been assembled at its production facility in Johannesburg."

from the article.
Click to expand...

Define "assembled"

I can also buy the working guts of a phone from China (or wherever) and just slap some random injection molded part around it and call it "assembled"
 
He actually looks surprised to see an assembly of a phone in this pic, LOL.

1719562976794.png
 
Every person I know that ever had a Mobicell phone said it was the biggest crap they ever had, so I really question the "successful" in your story.
 
DerickSZA said:
Every person I know that ever had a Mobicell phone said it was the biggest crap they ever had, so I really question the "successful" in your story.
Click to expand...
You are right, and now I remember better.
The one I had, you could clearly see the UI and the firmware was done in China. Typical poor spelling and typical UI design from China. I see a similar "style" if you will in other things from China.

So to be pretty blunt, this is likely a CKD model, gets the bits from China and assembles them here with the Mobicel name on.

Photo of that production facility is telling too... cheap cheap
 
Willie Trombone said:
Ouch... hundreds in 17 years doesn't sound too successful. That said, any profit in that market here is success.
Maybe someone can explain the seemingly fake link in the Wikipedia page about the brand:

Mobicel - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

He placed the first order for a new phone designed to his own specifications, and launched the Mobicel brand.[3]
[3] "Social Media", Online Marketing and Big Data Exploration, Palgrave Macmillan, 2015, doi:10.1057/9781137488961.0012, ISBN 9781137488961, retrieved 2023-07-11

I can find no reference to Mobicel or Khan in that publication...
Click to expand...
How many models (not sub variants) have the big names like Samsung for instance had? Some like Apple actually pride themselves on only having a handful.
 
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