India’s mobile phone manufacturer, Lava is set to launch its operations in Kenya in September this year, nine months after it entered the African mobile market through Egypt.
Set to launch both feature phones for the mass market and dual SIM low cost smartphones for the mid-range market segment, Lava is banking on price and quality as its competitive edge from the rest of the flock in the market.
According to Tathagat Tripathi, Head of Marketing for Lava Africa, “Today mobile device has displaced digital cameras, planners, torch, calculators, music devices, notepads and to a large extent computers and laptops. The mobile device has become an integrak oart o four daily life and hence there is need to ensure that the consumers cannot only rely on the quality of your products but also provide a highly reliable range of products to the Kenyan market and also open company owned and operated service center in Kenya.”
Lava has also partnered with Fonesrus Ltd as their local distributors. Fonesrus are looking at using both online and offline channels to help the phone brand to penetrate the Kenyan market against incumbents already in the market.
Lava set up its Design Centre in Noida, India in 2016 but it also has a large in-house Research & Development Centre in Shenzhen, China. Lava has operations in Thailand, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Middle East, Pakistan, Indonesia, Mexico, and Russia. It was supposed to launch its products in Egypt in 2016 then expand across Africa that same year.
The Lava iris80 phone which is among the four smartphones to be launched in Kenya in September is powered by a 1.3 GHz Quad Core processor and has a 1GB RAM. The phone has a 5.0 HD IPS display screen with a 2.5D Arc Glass. It has a 5.0 MP front camera and an 8.0MP main camera. With an 8GB internal memory, the phone runs on Star OS based on Android 7.0 Nougat. The phone has a 2500 mAh battery.
