Tecno Mobile Ethiopia, a subsidiary of the Hong Kong-based company, has said it will release the first domestically assembled Smartphone come July 2012.
The new phone, will be branded Tecno T3 and it will be an Android 2.3 based device. Android is a Linux-based operating system used in mobile devices including smart phones and tablet computers.
It is speculated that the device will be sold for an estimated price of ETB 6,000 to 8,000 (US$334 to US$445).
In the meantime, Tecno is carrying out a market study to find the most viable market price for the new product, according to Henry Yu, General Manager of Techno Ethiopia.
Tecno already has several phones in the Ethiopian market, all of which support the major national languages.
However, Henry Yu said that the new phone will only support the Amharic language for the time being.
An Ethiopian company, Information Technology Transfer Services, developed the Amharic application. This will work on all Android operating systems, says to Ayalew Aseffa, Founder and Chief Executive of ITTS.
Tecno Mobile Ethiopia was established in 2006 before launching its operations in Ethiopia in September 2011 with a capital investment of more than 1 million US dollars from its parent company Tecno Telecom Ltd, a Hong Kong-based mobile manufacturer.
