Onyx Connect to be first company to make smartphones in Africa
A Johannesburg start-up is set to become the first company to manufacture smartphones in Africa, taking advantage of low costs and growing local demand to build handsets, tablets and other devices based on Google’s Android system. Onyx Connect, a privately backed company that had raised R150m from investors, would begin production in the first quarter of next year, said sales director Andre van der Merwe. The company is licensed to load Google software like Android and Chrome onto devices sold under its own brand or products it makes for others. "We are talking to companies to manufacture handsets, laptops and possibly Android TV boxes," Van der Merwe said in an interview. Those talks included Google itself and Vodacom. Vodacom would "welcome the opportunity" to offer high-quality devices made in SA, Jorge Mendes, a Vodacom consumer sales and distribution executive, said in an e-mail, declining to comment on Onyx specifically. For Google, local production would stoke a sales push in...
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