Made in Africa: Rwanda Hosts First African Smartphone Company

The notorious “Rwanda Genocide” between 7 April and 15 July 1994 is probably, the trademark of the Central/Eastern African nation, The Republic of Rwanda. This is not however, until the arrival of one of the greatest visionary leader of contemporary leadership in the continent, Paul Kagame.

Regardless of its past, Rwanda has registered tremendous progress across all sectors of its society since 1994 from education, to health, infrastructure etc, under Paul Kagame, trouncing the global expectation about the potentials of a nation recovering from the despicable experience of genocide.

Although 39 percent of the population of Rwanda is said to be still living below the poverty line, Rwanda has quickly established itself as one of the fastest growing economics in the continent.

Recently, the government of Rwanda lunched the Mara Group, a company that began to produce the first “entirely made in Africa Smartphone” in an attempt to turning Rwanda into a regional tech hub, something rare in most African states.

The project was first revealed by President Paul Kagame to the CNN in September, of ongoing work to establish Africa’s “first high tech Smartphone factory,” CNN reported.

Though, other African nations like Egypt, Algeria, and South Africa all have assembly plants, according to Reuters, those companies all import the components, unlike Rwanda. Today, Mara X and Mara Z, both smartphone models produce by the Mara Tech Company are in the Rwanda’s market.

The following are the details of the phones produce by Mara:

  • “Mara X model: 16GB storage. Retail: 120,250 Rwandan francs ($130)
  • Mara Z model: 32GB storage. Retail: 175,750 Rwandan francs ($190)”

This move by Rwanda is already widely celebrate across the world, with many pointing to a new era of Africa’s contribution to the global tech, and undoubtedly to serve as a means of reducing the dependency ratio of the continent on other foreign techs such as Samsung and Nokia.