Safaricom to launch the first android mobiles in Kenya next week.
Its official. Kenya is about to get its first android mobile handsets next week courtesy of Safaricom. I have found out from reliable sources that Kenya’s first android mobiles will be a Huawei handsets and Safaricom will be the launch partner for the same. This is therefore the first confirmed instance where we will (finally) have a androids in Kenya following other announcements some months ago from LG and Samsung that they too would be launching android powered handsets in either June or July 2010. So far, neither of these brands have come to market with an android offering so we will just have to wait and see.
Whatever the case, its exciting news since androids are all the rage globally and the phones are making a serious run at Apple’s hugely popular iPhone. Whats interesting to note is that Motorola’s mobile division is resurgent following their decision to adopt android for all their new smart phones including the runaway success, Droid. Android, being open source is also being snapped up by most mobile device manufacturers and is fast becoming the “de facto” mobile operating system for smart phones. In fact, one could say that android has the distinct potential of becoming the windows of mobile phones in the next few years if it continues to gain adoption as is currently the case.
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11 Comments
this is great news….i cant wait to own one…
About time. As a self-confessed android fanboy(and budding developer) this news could not be better. I just hope they dont treat us like ‘watoto wadogo hawajui’ i.e shipping the devices with android version 1.5/1.6
@Moses
1. I dont wanna sound dumb but since safcom are the ones bringing it, will the phones be safaricom branded in the same way AT&T and Verizon do with the iphone/android?
2. I’m curious! Since safcom are the ones launching the huawei-based android phones,does it mean that they were trainning guys to develop for the platform in the safaricom academy? Do you think they are planning to launch their own android market?
Could these be the phones to launch from Huawei?
http://www.huawei.com/news/view.do?id=11162&cid=42
Moses, Why is this exciting news?
Tx, Saleem Ahmed
They were ALREADY selling android phones 🙂
A friend of mine bought one from them – HTC Tattoo – from them though from this page, it appears they have pulled it off their special offers:
http://www.safaricom.co.ke/catalog/
Been using an android based phone for over 1 year and there’s no going back for me.
It is said Huawei will sell their own brand U8220 phone in Kenya market. In future more famous technology companies will enter the advanced phone industry.
Absolutely. The next androids are coming from Samsung and LG by around September 2010.
hey does it mean when i come home with my HTC Desire Graphite, it cant work???????someone help me
hey some guy from standard media has published this article online word by word without due respect to authorshrship
Billy, sorry to hear that your having issues with the HTC Desire. As for the article in the Standard Media, I just saw it. Goes to show that Bloggers can lead the way in breaking stories so no worries about that for me 🙂
What version of Android do these phones run?
Also Android doesn’t support SIM Toolkit so no MPesa 🙁
thanks for that offer its so nice anyway i have a warm blood for androids but these is where safaricom and other mobile retailers went wrong, ” selling i phones tripple its original price,” 8 gb iphone selling at 79,950 that sucked. maybe i should count on saf coz am told androids will be selling at 8000 ksh. thats gret. saf you are the best