Watch: President unveils first ‘Made in Africa’ smartphones

The much-anticipated launch of the state-of-the-art Mara phone manufacturing plant at Dube TradePort was unveiled by President Cyril Ramaphosa last Thursday.

The plant will be the first of its kind in South Africa and represents one of the first of Cyril Ramaphosa’s promised investments from last year’s investment conference drive. Ramaphosa hailed the plant as a sign of South Africa’s investment potential.

The Mara Group’s R1.5bn investment will see smartphones manufactured at the Durban plant and sold to the local and export market.

Speaking at the launch the President said negative South Africans assumed that the plant was one of “Ramaphosa’s pipe dreams”.

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“Today we are reaping the fruits of exactly what was promised. Another thing is, when I told people I was coming here today, one person who I won’t mention said this is a factory where they are just putting things together. This is how the negativity spreads in our country.

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“We South Africans beat ourselves to the ground. We don’t celebrate the good that we are doing. Today, we see that this is not an assembly plant, this is a cellphone manufacturing plant from the get-go,” he said.

Ramaphosa said the launch would go a long way to instill confidence in others wanting to invest in South Africa.

“With the launch of the smartphone factory we have made history. The launch of the plant shows that South Africa is indeed a place where people should invest”.

“The World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Index indicates South Africa’s overall ranking improved from 67 in 2018 to 60 out 141 nations in 2019.

“Earlier this year, I announced our ambition to be within the top 50 cohort of countries featured in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business index. Though our work to achieve that ranking is nascent, we expect to see improvements in the next three years.

“We are working in partnership with business, labour and civil society to unlock growth, create jobs and build an inclusive economy,” he said.

KwaZulu-Natal Premier Sihle Zikalala thanked Mara Phone for showing confidence in KZN and South Africa.

“The people of KZN are profoundly grateful and honoured to make history and open the first South African cellphone production plant,” he said.

The launch was critical in cementing KZN as a centre of advanced manufacturing.

According to Trade and Industry Minister Ebrahim Patel, the KZN manufacturing sector employs 350 000 people and it’s the sixth largest manufacturing sector in the African economy. The implementation of the Special Economic Zone (SEZ) programme at the Dube TradePort supported this growth in manufacturing.

Zikalala praised President Ramaphosa for what he described as tireless efforts and strides in promoting investment in SA.

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“We are all aware of the efforts of the President to ensure that we attract investment and address the plight of South Africans who are unemployed and go to bed on empty stomachs. We hope this launch will go far in strengthening your resolve to continue championing our government’s cause of reducing unemployment, inequality and poverty,” he said.

The Mara phone brand has launched two models, the Mara X and Mara Z, described as “affordable and with a long-lasting battery, immense storage and a two-year Android version update delivered through a partnership with Google and its Android One programme. The smartphones have been described as the first “Made in Africa” models.

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The CEO of the Rwanda-based Mara group, Ashish Thakkar took the President on a tour of the modern state-of-the-art plant.

The pan-African company, which also operates in the financial, manufacturing, real estate and agriculture industries will roll out 200 Mara stores across South Africa.

Part of the revenue from sales will be earmarked for youth, women and job empowerment.

The phones are expected to be listed on commerce sites such as Jumia, Konga, and Amazon. The company also plans to sell the phones via retail partnerships with telecom operators Vodafone, MTN and Airtel.

The Mara Phones factory will initially employ 313 workers which is planned to increase to 1 369 over five years. The plant is currently staffed with 200 formerly unemployed engineers.

Of these, over 90 percent of them are made up of youth and two thirds are women. The launch date and price of the smartphone has yet to be released.

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