Hisense is synonymous with TVs and to a large extent home appliances like fridges, air conditioners among others but to sum it all, they’re in the consumer electronics business.
Overtime we’ve seen a few of their smartphones making inroads into consumers hands but it is safe to assume the company does not pay too much attention to the smartphone business.
However, that is set to change with an announcement that Hisense is considering setting up a smartphone manufacturing plant on African soil. Already they have assembling plants for most of their products even here in Uganda, majority of which focus on TVs which also happen to be their holy grail.
The preferred place of choice to manufacture the smartphones is South Africa in Hisense’s Atlantis Plant found in Cape Town.
“We are busy with a feasibility study. There is still a lot of homework to do,” said Youbo Li, Hisense’s South Africa General Manager.
Other smartphone vendors with plants in Africa include Tecno which manufactures some of its smartphones in Ethiopia though majority of its shipments still come from China.
Smartphones remain some of the fastest growing consumer electronics especially in the developing world like Africa, given majority of the population are mobile first and smartphone penetration is still low. This creates room for new and established brands to curve out a market thirsty for technologies like smartphones, helped by growing investments in wireless technologies like 3G and recently 4G.
