Photo: Courtesy |
Finish phone maker, Nokia is to launch next of its X series smartphones (now XL) tomorrow morning in Kenya to stimulate its android powered devices fold.
The company launched its first android powered X smartphone for low end market in Kenya March. With a competitive pricing strategy against rivals offering the entry level devices, the company is upbeat of gaining a significant stake of the 40 percent market share of smartphones in the country.
Nokia’s East Africa General Manager, Bruce Howe, told journalists in Nairobi the Nokia X series will help bridge a huge opportunity gap between its range of Asha and Lumia phones.
“This is where significant growth and sweet spot lies,” said Howe.
Currently, Samsung dominates the Kenyan smartphone business in terms of sales value and volume as Nokia comes second.
Last year, Samsung’s Galaxy S Duos and Galaxy trend models were the most sold by the South Korean multinational conglomerate to record 49 percent in local market share doubling Nokia’s 23 percent.
The two devices by Samsung retails at Sh 18,000 and 16,000 respectively. Other competitors under the segment include Tecno’s Phantom A, Huawei’s 4Africa and LG’s range of phones.
Nokia X’s built on Android open source software effectively cuts its new users from accessing mobile apps through Google play store as it adopts Microsoft’s services before it fully acquires Nokia’s devices unit later in the year.
To push uptake of the devices, Nokia is offering new customers of its X phone a month’s free landline and mobile calls and 10 Gb cloud storage through Microsoft’s OneDrive.