Kenya is planning to launch its own locally-built mobile phone

Kenya is joining a short list of African countries trying to develop their own locally-made phones.

The government is putting aside one billion shillings ($10 million) to boost startups working in the mobile telephone software and hardware industry. Information and communications technology minister Joe Mucheru said the move was aimed at bolster manufacturing, making phones that are “suitable for our markets,” besides driving the prices of phones down.

By announcing this, Kenya is undertaking a project similar to those in nations including the Republic of Congo and South Africa. Last December, Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi also launched Nile X, a smartphone developed by Egyptian technology company SICO for local consumers.

Kenya’s decision to assemble a local phone is pragmatic, given the increasing uptake in mobile phones across the country. In many ways, the East African nation’s economy is “mobile first”: almost 98% of the population having access to a mobile phone, according to the Communications Authority of Kenya. This increasing ownership has also driven subscriptions to mobile money with the dominant player being Safaricom’s M-Pesa service, itself a global leader in the sector.

The rise in mobile phone usage also allowed startups to provide innovative mobile-based solutions including accessing credit, electricity, messaging, insurance, besides paying for ride-hailing services. The rapid mobile uptake has been augmented by increasing internet speeds: one study shows Kenya’s mobile average data connectionspeed in the first quarter of 2017 was almost twice as fast as the global average.