Govt intervention needed to lower smartphone prices - MTN

May 14, 2021

Smartphone penetration in Uganda is estimated at about 27%.

Govt intervention needed to lower smartphone prices - MTN

Faridah Kulabako
Journalist @New Vision

The government has been urged to consider offering relief, especially in taxes to facilitate a drop in smartphone prices and enable more Ugandans to access them.

The appeal was made by the MTN Uganda chief marketing officer Somdev Sen during the launch of a partnership between MTN and Tecno Mobile, where customers who will buy the Tecno Camon17 smartphone will get 3GB data for three months and a 100% bonus on data bundle purchases.

Sen said that while the government has done its best especially in facilitating internet connectivity across the country, it needs to lower taxes on smartphone devices to drive penetration, which he said is still lower than many countries across the world.

According to Sen, increased access to smartphones will help boost electronic-commerce (e-commerce), now that businesses are now being pushed online due to the COVID-19 pandemic that requires people to limit physical contact as much as they can.

“We know that once penetration increases, it will be much easier for people to go online and continue with their businesses and COVID has taught us a lesson and we know that it is not going away anytime soon,” Sen said.

Smartphone penetration in Uganda is estimated at about 27%.

Speaking at the graduation ceremony of small and medium-sized enterprises that were trained under the digital literacy skills programme at Nakawa Vocational Training College recently, the Uganda Communications Commission director for Rural Communications Development Fund (RCDF) George William Nyombi Thembo alluded that while the government has succeeded at lowering internet prices in the country, access to affordable smartphones and digital literacy gap remain major challenges.

He, however, said that the government is committed to boosting digital skills through several initiatives, to enable especially micro and small businesses to move online.

As an initiative to drive smartphone penetration in the country, Sen said that MTN launched a device-financing scheme that enables customers to get a 4G smartphone after paying less than half of the phone price and pay the rest in instalments through mobile.

Tecno Uganda brand manager Timmy Shen also said enhanced smartphone penetration will support the growth of e-commerce in Uganda.

He pointed out that devise manufacturers are increasingly producing smartphones that can particularly support e-commerce.

“The Camon17 for instance has a big storage capacity that allows one to store big documents related to the business, store business videos and photos that can be shared with customers and also provides high processing speeds,” he said.

The Camon17 series comes in three different versions; Camon17, Camon17P and Camon17Pro.

The Camon17 Pro, which is in the top tier of the Camon17 series goes for sh1 million and has an 8GB ROM plus 256GB storage combination, among others while Camon17 goes for sh600,000.

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