First Egypt smartphone maker looks to Africa

Egypt’s first smartphone maker will assemble handsets for other companies as it seeks to become the main contract builder of electronics bound for the rest of Africa.

SICO Technology, which makes its own Nile X brand of handsets that sell for as low as $80, has begun to build smartphones for Indian and Chinese firms and will eventually produce items like TVs, satellite receiver boxes and electronic-payment systems under contract, Chief Executive Officer Mohammad Salem said.

International companies will “benefit from the presence of a manufacturing centre away from East Asia,” Salem said, declining to identify who it has agreements with. The pandemic’s disruption to supply chains “proved that technological and industrial centers must be distributed around the world.”

Rising demand

SICO could play a role broadly similar to Foxconn Technology Group, which makes iPhones in Asia, he said. Demand for handsets in Africa is booming as more people come online and prices fall, with mobile banking a particularly popular service.

The plan comes as Egypt, one of the continent’s three largest economies and its top manufacturer, looks to boost trade with sub-Saharan Africa. While the Arab nation’s exports to the continent are a fraction of those sent to Europe, the Middle East or the US, they recorded solid annual growth before the pandemic and stand to benefit from the African Continental Free Trade Area enacted in January.

SICO, which is 20 per cent owned by Egypt’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology and has factories near Cairo and in the southern city of Assiut, targets producing more than 2 million devices of various brands next year, up from 1.5 million in 2021, Salem said.