The government has released 194,000 locally made mobile phones into the Kenyan market to bridge the country's wide digital gap.

According to Information, Communications, and Technology Cabinet Secretary (CS) Eliud Owalo, the government is targeting to release 3 million handsets annually to meet the in-country high demand.

“We may have a deficit in the market in terms of the number of Kenyans who have got access to smart enabled telephones and that is why the government embarked on the process of local assembly of cheap smart enabled telephones,” he said.

The Kenya Kwanza government rolled out a state-of-the-art East Africa Device Assembly Kenya Limited in Athi River in October last year to fulfill its promise to establish a local smartphone assembly plant that can produce up to 3 million mobile phone units a year.

The assembly factory was a joint venture between local mobile network operators and international device manufacturers.

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“The local assembly plant has released a total of 194,000 handsets going for 50 US Dollar per unit, We target to hit 3 million handsets annually to fill the void available in the market for optimum capacity utilization level,” added CS Owalo.