On October 15-16, 2019, the first China-Africa Mobile Internet Economy Summit (CAMIES) was held in Nairobi, Kenya. The summit was co-sponsored by China-Africa Fund for Industrial Cooperation (CAFIC), Global System for Mobile Communications Association (GSMA Mobile 360 Series), and TECNO, global premier mobile phone brand.
It brought together more than 200 representatives from top organizations and enterprises in the fields of technology, mobile communications, Internet, venture capital, and entrepreneurship incubation, including Netease, Tencent, Jumia, Google, Facebook, Safaricom, MTN, Goldman Sachs, United Bank for Africa, etc.
The summit attendees included Justin B.N. Muturi, Speaker of Kenya National Assembly, Wu Peng, Ambassador of the P.R.C to Kenya, Jerome Ochieng, Principal Secretary of Kenya Ministry of ICT, Han Hongmei, Chairman of China-Africa Fund for Industrial Cooperation.
At the summit, TECNO shared its valuable experiences and substantial achievements in the African mobile Internet ecosystem. With its in-depth involvement in the African market for many years, TECNO has established unique advantages in local insights, business layout, channel construction, industry talent cultivation, and other aspects in Africa.
“With the digitalization and modernization of Africa, TECNO will keep providing users with smart, smooth, simple smartphone devices and mobile internet services.” said Stephen Ha, General Manager of TECNO, “As a forerunner of mobile Internet in Africa, with our own successful experiences and vast smartphone terminal entrance resources, we are willing to help Chinese start-ups interested in African market to go overseas better and faster, and empower excellent start-up teams of Africa to accelerate the rapid incubation and growth of mobile Internet products.”
Mobile Internet in Africa Is Embracing a New Opportunity for a Great Leap Forward in Development
In recent years, Africa’s mobile network infrastructure has been rapidly improved, and smartphones have been further popularized. The number of mobile Internet users in Africa is growing rapidly. According to the latest report released by the GSMA this July, in the next few years, sub-Saharan Africa will be the region with the fastest-growing number of mobile users in the world.
By 2025, the total number of mobile users in that region will increase to more than 600 million, which is about half of the total population on the African Continent. By then, the number of users accessing the Internet via smartphones will be doubled.
Under the stimulation of the demographic dividend, Africa has ushered in a crucial time for digital transformation and digital economy development. The substantial increase of users has a profound impact on the development model of mobile Internet technology in Africa.
Nowadays, from mobile payment to instant messaging, from music streaming media to short video social networking, from online games to online reading, Africa is experiencing an upsurge in the development of the mobile Internet. The China-African innovation team is constantly bringing forth new ideas in the localization of mobile Internet products, operations, and strategies in Africa.
Preliminary Achievements of TECNO’s Ecological Layout of Mobile Internet in Africa
HiOS, TECNO’s customized intelligent terminal operating system, is more suitable for smartphone users in Africa. Based on it, TECNO actively cooperates with APP store Palmstore, game center AHA Games, mobile browser Phoenix Browser, news aggregation APP Scooper, mobile Internet traffic APP SIMO, and other applications to build a mobile Internet ecological chain for Africa.
At the same time, TECNO has actively introduced external high-quality resources and established in-depth partnerships with several mobile internet applications that are popular with African mobile users, including music streaming and download service platform Boomplay, short video social platform Vskit, online reading APP Ficool, and mobile payment APP Palmpay, etc.
