Safaricom has sold over 600,000 Neon smartphones in 2019

Over 600,000 Neon-branded smartphones have been sold in the country since the start of the year, Safaricom has announced.

The explosion in popularity of the devices can be mainly attributed to their low pricing.

Safaricom’s Neon brand of smartphones offers most Kenyans a chance to own a smartphone and access data services at some of the most affordable rates in the country.

While the Neon brand whose devices include both smartphones and tablets has been around for a while, it has taken a more positive turn over the last year as Safaricom partnered with Google to have the devices powered by Android Go, the mobile operating system that Google has optimised for better resource utilization on devices with limited hardware resources.

That, coupled with the data savings built into the system and the core bundled applications like Google (Search) Go, Google Assistant Go, Google Maps Go, YouTube Go and others has meant that users stand to benefit from some data savings while still being able to squeeze the most performance-wise from their bargain devices.

READ: Android One and Android Go: What they are and why they matter

A more intensive marketing campaign by Kenya’s largest mobile network operator dubbed Maisha Ni Digital which has seen the most recent generation of Neon devices heavily marketed across the country both online and offline – including with juicy buy-one-get-one-free offers – can also be attributed to the huge uptake in a highly competitive marketplace.

Safaricom launched the Neon Kicka 4, the most affordable of the Neon smartphones on offer at the moment, a year ago complete with an accompanying layby programme to make it even easier for customers to pay for it. It followed up the Kicka 4 with 3 new devices in April this year. It has since added another device, the Neon Lite, to the mix bringing up the total tally of the new generation Neon smartphones to 5.

Bar the Neon Kicka 4 and the Neon Storm which are 3G-only, the rest of the devices offer the most affordable means of experiencing high-speed data connectivity using Safaricom’s 4G network as well as crisp clear calls on VoLTE.