Teams up with Huawei
Microsoft is teaming up with Huawei of China to sell a low-cost Windows smartphone in Africa.
Dubbed the Huawei 4Afrika Windows Phone the beast will cost $150 and be sold in seven countries. If it takes off, it could provide Microsoft with a huge population base for its mobile operating system. Cheap and cheerful phones are doing well in Africa and the region is Huawei’s strongest markets outside of China.
But this will be stage one of a plan which also features Microsoft’s chum Nokia. The pair intend to introduce two new Windows phones for the African market. The World Bank says that roughly a quarter of the one billion people on the continent are middle-class wage earners, the target group that Microsoft will try to reach with the Huawei phone.
Microsoft plans to introduce the Huawei 4Afrika phone on Tuesday at events in Lagos, Cairo, Nairobi, Johannesburg and Abidjan, Ivory Coast. It will also be sold in Morocco and Angola.
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