Asset financing firm M-Kopa sold at least a million pieces of its branded smartphones last year, reflecting the growing popularity of credit offers on the product in the Kenyan market.
The number represents 20.9 percent of the total 4.8 million pieces recorded by the Communications Authority of Kenya (CA), as having been sold to Kenyans across the country during the 12 months ended last September.
It also reflects 69.4 percent of the firm’s total production capacity, having produced about 5,000 devices per day, which are sold on a hire-purchase basis on a pay-as-you-go model.
M-Kopa started assembling smartphones locally in January 2023, after the government introduced a 10 percent excise duty on imported phones, adding to the already existing 25 percent import duty which would significantly raise the cost of the devices.
The firm is one of the only two companies assembling phones in Kenya, alongside the East Africa Device Assembly Kenya, which is owned by a Safaricom-led consortium that also includes Chinese phone manufacturer Telel, Jamii telecom and the Industrial Technology Training Company Limited.
M-Kopa revealed the annual sales figure as it announced that it has hit the one million milestone in its free health insurance coverage that it activated a year ago.
First piloted in January last year, in partnership with Turaco Insurance, the programme provides customers who purchase an M-Kopa branded smartphone, with a free inpatient health cover that pays out Sh1,000 for every night spent in a registered public or private hospital.
“What began five years ago as health insurance coverage for our sales agents has grown into protection for over one million Kenyans,” said M-Kopa Kenya general manager Martin Kingori.
