Egypt becomes one of the world's manufacturers of smartphones after unveiling an indigenous cell phone at the Cairo ICT trade fair.
The first ever cell phone made in Egypt was unveiled on Sunday at the Cairo ICT fair.
During the fair, the minister of Communication and Information Technology, Yasser el-Kady presented the model to President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi.
SICO Technology, a company affiliated to the country's Ministry of Communication, manufactures the smartphone, branded Nilex.
Nile X is not only 4G but comes with a number of features including, 13-megapixel dual camera, fingerprint sensor, 4GB RAM, 64 GB storage, 5.7 HD display, and fast-charging feature. It runs on Android 7.0 Nougat.
Everything you want to know about #Egypt's New Indigenous Cell Phone: NileX #SICO Silicon Industries Corporation #Startup #economy pic.twitter.com/gsEgwobdSq -- Egypt Built (@HosamDakhakhni) December 4, 2017
The phone will be available in the market by end of December 2017 according to Mohammed Salem, the Chairman of the Seiko Holdings. It is set to cost less than the imported phones of the same capacity at $112.4.
According to Egypt Today, Nile X is made from 45% local components and is manufactured in a Seiko Technological factory in Assiut.
SICO hopes to acquire 5% of the country's mobile phone market within its first year of selling. It will have technical centres in various areas including Cairo, Giza, Alexandra, Sharkia, Luxor and Assiut.
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According to Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, the country had 98.2 million mobile phones users and 26.6m registered mobile internet users as at January 2017.
There is no word yet on whether the Nile X smartphone will be available to the rest of Africa.
Cairo ICT fair is one of the biggest trade fairs that bring together different stakeholders in the information and technology sector. 2017 marks 21 years of the event.
Apart from the smartphone, President el-Sisi also inaugurated new technological zones in Sadat-Menoufia and Assiut governorates and Egypt's new e-Visa services. He stressed that supporting the youth and creating the appropriate ecosystem to support the technological innovation is one of the most important goals of Egypt.