U.S. firm to assemble phones in Uganda

U.S. firm CTI Africa plans to invest 10 million dollars in Uganda to build a plant to assemble low-end smart mobile phones and manufacture phone components, its chief executive said on Friday. CTI says it is focused on digital technology to bring affordable solutions in sectors like agriculture, energy, healthcare and finance to rural communities […]

U.S. firm CTI Africa plans to invest 10 million dollars in Uganda to build a plant to assemble low-end smart mobile phones and manufacture phone components, its chief executive said on Friday.

CTI says it is focused on digital technology to bring affordable solutions in sectors like agriculture, energy, healthcare and finance to rural communities in Africa.

CEO Michael Landau told Reuters in an interview on Friday the company plans to build the plant in the capital Kampala and to eventually manufacture elsewhere in the country.

“From a realistic perspective we are hoping to be able to start delivering the phones in the early first quarter of 2019,” Landau told Reuters.

“We need to be manufacturing millions of phones …the cost of developing a building that can handle that sort of value is going to be in the $10 million range.”

There are more than 20 million mobile phone subscribers in Uganda, where the sector is dominated by a unit of South Africa’s MTN Group and a subsidiary of India’s Bharti Airtel.

(Reuters/NAN)