Earlier today I attended the Solar Africa exhibition at the Carnivore grounds in Nairobi, Kenya, which ran from the 10th to the 12th June 2016. The main reason I was there was to visit the team from Cello Electronics who had a stand where they were showcasing a range of innovative TV products targetting the African marketplace. Cello Electronics is a well established UK business that designs and manufactures a broad range of consumer electronics spanning tablets, laptops, TVs, etc.

In particular, Cello Electronics was showcasing for the very first time two TV products. The first is their Solar TV which is a global first according to them. The Solar TV has been designed from the ground up to work in environments where the electricity may not be ready available, or reliable. The Solar TV comes with a solar panel that serves as its main source of electricity, coupled with a rechargeable integrated battery. This means that the Solar TV will NOT have the ability to connect to the regular electricity grid from the get-go meaning its a solar-first device.

Coincidentally, I had a meeting with someone earlier this week who works in the off-grid energy solutions space in Africa and he told me that in Kenya for instance over 80% of 45 million citizens do NOT have access to electricity in the conventional sense. This means that the market for off-grid energy products and solutions is in fact massive given that the majority of Kenyans are effectively off the grid. It is exactly this market that Cello’s Solar TV hopes to target.

Cello Electronics’ 22 inch Solar TV is expected to retail for around Kes. 35,000.00 when they start distributing it in Kenya soon. It also comes with a smart energy management feature which ensures optimum usage of power in terms of charging from the solar panel in different weather conditions as well as how the battery uses power when the TV is running. Ultimately, this features helps ensure that consumers get the best possible performance from the Solar TV.

In scenarios where entrepreneurs and retailers want to sell the Solar TV using a hire purchase or subscription model, Cello Electronics has built in Pay-As-You-Go feature called ‘PAYGo TV. PAYGo TV means that consumers can pay for using the Solar TV by purchasing a service code periodically which is entered into the TV using the remote control. I found this feature to be really interesting in that you can see a scenario where consumers do not own the Solar TV but derive the utility of one by paying for usage, as and when required. This could unlock a whole new market that does not exist currently.

During Solar Africa, Cello Electronic’s also launched their Power Outage TV. The difference between the Solar TV and Power Outage TV is that the latter is designed for on-grid usage and not off-grid usage. However, the main thing is that the Power Outage TV has a battery integrated so that if the electricity goes off you can still enjoy watching your TV for a good number of hours. This to me seems especially handy in a market like Kenya where electricity can often be unreliable at the most inconvenient of times! For sure, Cello Electronics’ Power Outage TV could find lots of fans in a market like Kenya!

If you could be interested in Cello Electronics’ Solar TV or Power Outage TV on commercial or retail basis, you can reach them as follows:

UK

Brian Palmer, sales@celloelectronics.com, +44 7711 310818

John Rowe, Technical Director, john@celloelectronics.com, +44 1332 590394/ +44 1913 080401

Kenya

Owen Evans, East Africa Representative, owen@celloelectronics.com, +254 722 609391