Rwanda recently unveiled it’s first home-made Mara smartphone, Uganda has followed suit with the launch of its first ICT manufacturing and assembling plant whose first phone is a non-smartphone called the SIMI S300. Under the SIMI mobile brand, this is the first phone to be mass assembled in Uganda at their new factory in Namanve.
Launched by the President of Uganda, the new plant comes into force after government signed an agreement with Chinese owned SIMI technologies in July this year to promote the manufacturing of ICT electronics in Uganda.
The assembly plant of the SIMI S300 phone will run three production lines at full capacity; each line with daily production of 2,000 feature phones, 1,500 smart phones, 800 laptops, 2,000 chargers, 4,000 USB cables and 4000 sets of earphones and directly employing more than 400 staff. The manufacturing of these 2G feature phones however goes against government’s recent push for 3G and 4G wireless mobile technologies country-wide and increasing internet penetration.
SIMI S300 Specs
- Network: 2G GSM + GPRS/2G Dual Band(900/1800)
- SIM: Dual SIM support
- Camera: 0.08 megapixels
- Display: 1.77 inches
- Internal Storage: 32 MB
- RAM: 32 MB
- Battery: 1050 mAh
- Other: FM Radio/MP3 music support/ LED torch/ Bluetooth
Each SIMI S300 will cost only UGX 20,000 ($5.24) but price point should’t be surprising given that fact that its a feature phone. The aim of government is to reduction in the importation of phones. And wants to “encourage Ugandans today is to buy the products made in Uganda for the growth, development and betterment of our country,” State Minister for Investment and Privatization, Evelyn Anite said .
According to ICT Minister, Mr Frank Tumwebaze, one of the cost-push factors for internet is failure by people to afford devices that are able to connect to the internet.
The SIMI S300 phones cannot connect to the internet (hence why it’s called a feature phone) but the company will soon start manufacturing real smartphones under their brand name. According to the Daily Monitor, a plan is underway to connect all industrial Parks to the National Backbone infrastructure. Investors will not have to incur high costs of internet connectivity which in this day & age is an essential component of any industrial operation,” he said.
