Rwanda: Made In Africa

RWANDA

Made In Africa!

Rwanda released the first smartphones entirely made in Africa this week, an important milestone for the African country – and the continent – which has been struggling to overcome its economic dependence on commodities and instead develop more lucrative sectors such as tech, CNN reported.

While smartphones are already assembled in other African nations like Algeria, Egypt and South Africa, the components are always imported. Rwanda’s Mara Group, however, is making all parts of its smartphones at their Kigali factory, opened by Rwandan President Paul Kagame earlier this week.

“(It’s) another milestone on our journey to a high tech ‘Made in Rwanda’ industry,” he said, according to CNN.

The Mara X ($130) and Mara Z ($190), which both run on the Android operating system, are slightly more expensive than Chinese alternatives, but the company hopes customers will be lured by African pride to eventually displace the Chinese-owned Transsion, which has more than a 50 percent share of the continent’s cell-phone market.

The development is part of an accelerating trend: African tech is booming with more than 618 active tech hubs across the continent, an increase of almost one-third over 2018, said Quartz Africa.

The achievement is all the more impressive considering that consistent and reliable access to electricity much less fast internet is not a given across the continent.