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Rwanda just released the first smartphone made entirely in Africa
- ekianjo 7y agoThey say they don't do just assembly but I guess they don't make their own chips either so what is the difference vs assembly?
- incompatible 7y agoThey "manufacture the phones from the motherboards to the packaging" ... perhaps the case, motherboard, packaging, but still importing the components, in particular the system-on-a-chip and display? In that case, "made entirely" wouldn't be accurate.
- holstvoogd 7y agoAre there even any producers of low-level components & lcd displays outside China, Taiwan, Korea etc?
- ekianjo 7y agoJapan, unless it was not implied by your "etc" :)
- derekp7 7y agoWikipedia has a list of chip foundry plants, along with process size and production capacity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_semiconductor_fabrication_plants https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_semiconductor_fabricat... In addition to the US, there are and several throughout Europe, Russia, and former Soviet countries. Plus many countries throughout Asia.
- giancarlostoro 7y agoGreat list. Also a reminder of why they call it Silicon Valley after all... Maybe Rwanda will push towards researching making their own chipset. ARM is kind of a spec and not some specific processor is how I have understood it. You take the spec and design your own processor from it.
- pnako 7y ago>You take the spec You have to pay license fees :) but yeah that's the idea. SPARC and MIPS are a bit more open actually.
- giancarlostoro 7y agoI missed that bit, and I didn't think about SPARC / MIPS to be fair. Wasn't there another one recently opened up by IBM? Isn't RISC or RISCV? I only focused on ARM because then you can usually take advantage of Android. I do wish there were competing phone OS' though that were open source as well.
- yellowapple 7y agoDon't forget RISC-V and POWER.
- thatcat 7y agoLol, I don't see any production in Silicon Valley. Most CA production listed is around LA area.
- giancarlostoro 7y agoCalled it Silicon Valley then, fair enough!
- walrus01 7y agothat list seems to be entirely missing the upstate new york chip fab, which has been around since 2003 or so. https://phys.org/news/2019-04-semiconductor-firm-upstate-ny-chip.html https://phys.org/news/2019-04-semiconductor-firm-upstate-ny-...
- kevin_thibedeau 7y agoAlso missing the ON Semi fab in Rochester that made Kodak's image sensors.
- Iv 7y agoThere's a 32 nm fab in France (ST Microelectronics) doing a lot of components. I am not sure about the displays though.
- ainiriand 7y agoHardware/electronic design maybe? Often the boards are custom made for each model. But I could be wrong.
- demarq 7y agoTo be honest, I think China is the only country that can fit the strict definition of "entirely" made in". So I'm happy enough to give credit to rwanda for assembling the motherboard component by component.
- xhruso00 7y agoRaw materials are sourced in Africa -> Can't say made in cause those materials have to be harvested first
- Cyph0n 7y agoIf we’re talking about smartphones, I think South Korea and Taiwan would fit the bill.
- ganeshkrishnan 7y agoTo make an apple pie from scratch you have to invent the universe.
- Markoff 7y agono need to go to country level, they days it's ENTIRELY made in Africa, I think we can all agree they can make entirely phones only in (Eastern) Asia
- aaron695 7y agoThe claim thrown around which the western news is repeating is all, including chips. Take that as you will. "This is a manufacturing plant The factory is a manufacturing plant, not an assembly station. The distinction is that Mara Phones produces its own chips and parts from over 1,000 tiny components to have a complete phone. Assembly plants, on the other hand, put together complete parts." https://www.newtimes.co.rw/news/eight-things-know-about-mara-phones https://www.newtimes.co.rw/news/eight-things-know-about-mara...
- lonelappde 7y agoThe best measure I know of this is -- cost of the final product minus cost of imported inputs, or that divided by cost of final product. Ultimately what matters is things like how much value is created in the local economy (employment), and how independent they are from loss of their source of imports.
- sgt 7y agoHow about Android license? I assume they must be purchasing an Android license from Google in order to use the Play Store etc.
- ufmace 7y agoIt sounds like they did the design locally and manufactured the boards and case and other such mid-level components. Presumably the highest-end components like displays, processors, and other ICs are imported. So it's not really manufacturing the entire device locally, but it's a good first step. You gotta take these steps to build local expertise before you can think about building stuff like IC manufacturing that's local in a meaningful way. It sounds like they're on the right track, and I wish them the best.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- namibj 7y agoDo they have modern semiconductor fabrication capabilities at all?
- makotoNagano 7y agoI'm pretty sure they're importing the semiconductors, but manufacturing the PCBs
- lallysingh 7y agoThe phones look good (at least from the parts pictured). I wonder if they can bring a higher price than Chinese competitors with a design advantage.
- mikkom 7y agoIMHO The image looks rendered..
- phs318u 7y agoAccording to the website, you can order one now with a 3-5 day delivery (presumably more if destination is outside of Rwanda). https://maraphones.com/product/mara-x/ https://maraphones.com/product/mara-x/
- 1123581321 7y agoI just bought one and am promised delivery to the Midwest by 10/15 (~$25 shipping.)
- efa 7y agoSite must be getting hammered. I can't get it to come up.
- grecy 7y agoI was in Rwanda this time last year. After visiting ~30 African countries by that point I can say that it's an extremely refreshing change. There is a bustling tech sector in Kigali - they're making iPhone apps, designing and building hardware, etc. etc. There is a huge community of entrepreneurial younger people. People are extremely well educated, friendly and kind. I never saw a single piece of trash in the entire country. I felt as safe riding moto taxis around in the dark in Kigali as I do in any Canadian city.
- sgt 7y agoFYI for those unaware, grecy is the guy who recently completed a >50000 mile Africa expedition[1]. This guy knows Africa. It's nice to hear that Rwanda is doing well. [1] http://theroadchoseme.com http://theroadchoseme.com
- MichaelApproved 7y agoWow. The coastline of Africa is 18,950 miles (30,500 km), so That’s like looping around the content nearly 3 times. Here’s what I found on that site: > I’m doing an “Ask Me Anything” on Reddit right now. Come on over to Reddit.com and ask me any question you have about my three year, 54,000 mile and 35 country expedition around Africa. It’s all on the table – safety, money, health, budget, visas, route, people, animals, the Jeep. https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/brhbst/i_drove_my_jeep_around_africa_reddit_said_i_would/ https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/brhbst/i_drove_my_jee...
- grecy 7y agoFeel free to ask me any question you don't see answered there. And Yes, I did some zig-zagging! - https://www.instagram.com/p/Bw4h0X_Fq_G/ https://www.instagram.com/p/Bw4h0X_Fq_G/
- smeyer 7y agoOr he just looped around the coastline once at a tighter resolution than your source of 30,500 km https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coastline_paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coastline_paradox (Also thanks for the AMA link)
- kcolford 7y agoThat logo looks so nice. I literally want one just for how nice their brand looks. Why can't other electronics brands look that nice?
- xwdv 7y agoNot sure what you’re talking about, the Apple logo is pretty great, and has multiple meanings.
- tantalor 7y agoIt was better before they removed the colors.
- kcolford 7y agoMaybe, but it doesn't look good. It's just an apple with a bite taken out of it. It's whitewashed and bland. No character to it.
- forgottenpass 7y agoYeah, but the white apple is a very sterile presentation, and that might work if the company it represents wasn't so sterile too.
- oska 7y agoJust as one data point, I personally hate the Apple logo and am heartily sick of seeing it everywhere and I loathe the way they feature it so prominently on their laptop lids so that I do keep seeing it continually. So yeah, these things are subjective.
- Robotbeat 7y agoAfter my deep dive into reading about the Zipline Drone company (who first deployed at-scale in Rwanda and now serve virtually the entire country with rapid, fully electric airborne blood and medical product delivery), I learned just how well Rwanda is doing economically. Very vibrant, indeed. They are led by a paternalistic figure who helped stop the genocide and has high support in the population. It's not as democratic as I would like, and the Rwandan meddling in Congo isn't exactly clean, but trajectory of Rwanda to middle income country status is commendable. I worry about Kagame's admiration for the Chinese model of development, though. I guess an advantage of Africa versus China is the nations are more numerous and so power is more disperse (possible exception: Nigeria by the end of the century). I hope a gradual trajectory toward prosperity for all, freedom, and peace take place on this continent.
- mattr47 7y agoHe has support because if you voice against him you end up in prison, jail or exile. I'm not saying he didn't do great things to stop the genocide in 94, but the country is the way it is because he rules with an iron fist.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- henrygrew 7y agoLargely PR, on the ground things are different, Rwanda is like china
- Markoff 7y agoMade ENTIRELY in Africa except SoC, memory modules, display and pretty much any other component... Only continent where they make ENTIRELY phones is Asia.