Safaricom steps up data war with Intel phone contract
Intel’s first mobile phone, Lava XOLO X900 launched in India in April last year. File
What you need to know:
Intel has partnered exclusively with Safaricom and will on Thursday avail a range of handsets dubbed Yolo, billed as the first smartphone with ‘Intel inside’ in Africa.
The Yolo smartphone becomes Intel’s third branded mobile phone.
It will sport an Intel processor, 4.5-inch touchscreen display, a front camera for video calling and a 5-megapixel camera.
Safaricom has signed an exclusive deal to locally distribute a new range of smartphones powered by American chip-maker Intel as the telco eyes growing revenues from mobile data and sale of handsets.
The California-based chip giant has partnered exclusively with Safaricom and will on Thursday avail a range of handsets dubbed Yolo, billed as the first smartphone with ‘Intel inside’ in Africa.
Both firms confirmed the deal but declined to give more details until after the launch.
Safaricom is banking on the mid-level Android-powered smartphones to grow its mobile and devices income which reached Sh12.9 billion, or 12 per cent of total revenues in the financial year ended March 2012.
The Yolo smartphone becomes Intel’s third branded mobile phone. Last year, Intel produced the pioneer Xolo X900 and later a dual SIM model A700, which is available in India, United Kingdom, and Russia.
The Yolo model retails at Sh10,999 and comes with a free 500 megabytes of data. It sports an Intel processor, 3.5-inch touchscreen display and a 5-megapixel camera.
If Intel carries on with the system of displaying the partner operator as is the case in the UK and Russia, the phones will carry the logo ‘Intel Inside’ at the back and be marked ‘Safaricom.’
Kenya becomes the first country for the American multinational semiconductor chip-maker to launch its line of mobile devices, affirming the country’s position as the regional tech hub.
The US corporation markets its smartphone series fitted with Medfield — a processor for tablets and smartphones — as ideal for mobile browsing and running multiple apps.
“Smartphones with an advanced Intel processor enables fast web browsing, super responsive apps, and effortless multi-tasking,” says Intel on its website.
Data from the Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK), the industry regulator, shows that the number of Internet users now stands at 13.5 million with mobile data subscriptions accounting for 99.2 per cent of the total Internet and data subscriptions.
Despite the increase in Internet and data subscriptions to 8.5 million as at the end of September 2012, Kenya’s is only using 48.3 per cent of its total available bandwidth of 576,186 Mega bytes per second.
“The unexploited capacity demonstrates the great potential that exists in the Internet and data market segment,” said CCK in its quarterly report.
Intel is banking on its success in producing microprocessors for personal computers and laptops where it commands more than 80 per cent of the global chip market to gain a foothold in the mobile phone industry.
Apart from manufacturing its own branded smartphones, the US multinational supplies other handset makers such as Motorola, Lenovo and ZTE with Intel Atom processors.
In April 2012, the firm pioneered the sale of its own branded smartphones in India with the Intel AZ210 model marketed as XOLO X900.
The handset features a 4.03-inch TFT LCD capacitive touchscreen, micro SIM card slot, 1.6 GHz Intel Atom processor and runs on the Android version 2.3 (Gingerbread) operating system which can be upgradable to version 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich).
Non-voice segment
The XOLO X900 handset retails at an average price of about 14,490 rupees (Sh23,470 in India; £180 (Sh24,830 in the UK and 17,990 roubles (Sh46,750 in Russia.
Safaricom becomes the third telco Intel is partnering with after Orange UK and Russian carrier Megafon where its handsets trade as Orange San Diego and Megafon Mint, respectively.
In India, it is available through Lava International, a mobile phone vendor.
Total sales from Safaricom retail shops which mainly sell mobile phones amounted to Sh6.4 billion, which is six per cent of total turnover, and is emerging as a key income stream.
Safaricom has been focusing on growing income from non-voice segments such as SMS, data and M-Pesa which amounted to Sh31 billion or 29 per cent of total sales last year.
The strategy aims at cutting reliance on voice revenues which made up about two thirds, Sh68.9 billion, of the telco’s earnings of Sh107 billion in the last financial year.
