Opera and Mi-Fone to Offer Cheap Phones in SA
Opera and Mi-Fone teams up to provide affordable smart phones in SA. The deal means that Mi-Fone will carry Opera as its mobile browser and could potentially pave way for users to access the Internet for a cheaper price.
Alpesh Patel CEO of Mi-Fone stressed that their efforts will make a huge difference in smart phone markets because of its mere low-cost and the ability to access the Internet wirelessly. Africa is the newest target of many big mobile companies.
Mi-Fone has already sold more than one million units in Dubai and is powered by Google’s Android operating system and just like Mi-Fone, Google Android is more focused on servicing mass market rather than a few high end and select population.
Head of Mobile at Google South Africa Brett St Clair said that there is more success in controlling the larger market. She pointed that iPhone only has 2% of the world’s mobile phone market and that what they want is the other 98% that constitutes the mass market.
Mi-Fone is not in any way following the footsteps of big manufacturers like Sony Ericsson, Samsung, Research In Motion and others which all produced high end and expensive smart phones to go head to head with the popular iPhone. Mi-Fone’s market could be compared to that of the other brands like Nokia and LG’s cheaper models.
Opera Mini browser is currently the top mobile browser. This is hugely because of it lower memory and data consumption compared to other browsers. Cost of data is expensive in countries like Africa and using Opera as your browser can dictate the amount of your monthly phone bill.
Lars Boilesen, CEO of Opera Software also said that this partnership is attuned with their company’s vision and mission of bringing internet access to a wider population.
Posted by admin on Monday, September 12th, 2011
