Safaricom has sold more than 600,000 neon smart phones in 2019, making the devices the most popular and affordable in its retail shops across the country. The explosion in the neon’s popularity comes after Safaricom revamped its lineup in April 2019 to introduce affordable 4G smart phones in the country.
“We introduced the neon smart phone range to cater for customers seeking quality and reliable smart phones at an affordable price. The devices are especially designed to appeal to first-time smart phone users and have been received quite well in the market, emerging as our most preferred smart phone range,” said Michael Joseph, the chief executive officer, Safaricom.
Neon smart phones are precisely tailored to offer an optimum combination of screen-size, battery capacity, device storage, camera and phone memory at low prices. In addition, they are engineered to deliver superior connectivity offering fast data speeds off Safaricom’s countrywide 4G network.
In the recent past, Safaricom has partnered with Google™ to deliver an optimized variety of Android™ known as Android™ (Go edition) on the neon devices. Android (Go edition) helps neon smart phone users control their data usage by managing the apps which can use data and compress it through the Chrome™ browser.
Google’s advanced compression algorithm uses 40 percent less data to display search results. This configuration of the Android operating system is optimized for entry level devices and comes with a tailored suite of popular Google apps.
The neon range of smart phones are available under Safaricom’s Maisha Ni Digital campaign through the firm’s more than 50 shops across the country, Safaricom dealers, and online at Masoko.com.
Besides being the most affordable 4G devices in the country, they are also the most affordable VoLTE capable devices in Kenya.
Launched in June 2019, Voice over LTE (VoLTE) technology enhances call quality empowering Safaricom 4G customers to make crystal-clear voice calls, even when in noisy environments such as markets. The technology further enables customers to make video calls with other capable VoLTE devices at no extra cost.