Safaricom-backed firm assembles 700,000 devices in a year

Safaricom-backed East Africa Device Assembly Kenya (EADAK) produced 700,000 devices, including smartphones,in the year ended March 2026 amid the telco’s efforts to increase internet adoption through affordable handsets.

New disclosures by Safaricom's parent company, Vodacom Group, show that the Athi River-based plant produced smartphones, educational tablets and Know Your Customer (KYC) devices during the period.

KYC gadgets are used by financial institutions, telecom operators, and field agents to capture customer fingerprints or images for identity verification.

Launched in 2023, EADAK is a consortium comprising Safaricom, Jamii Telecoms, Chinese handset manufacturer Lel Technology and Industrial Technology Training Company Limited.

The plant has an annual production capacity of three million units and is part of Safaricom's strategy to increase smartphone penetration and drive internet usage on its network.

"In Kenya, the East Africa Device Assembly plant, launched in 2023 as a joint venture involving Safaricom, assembled around 700,000 devices, including smartphones, educational tablets and Know Your Customer (KYC) devices," Vodacom said in its annual report for the year ended March 2026.

EADAK manufactures the Neon range of Android-powered budget smartphones, which retail from about Sh3,000. Safaricom also sells some devices through financing plans that allow customers to pay in instalments.

"With an annual capacity of 3 million units, the facility is central to our digital inclusion strategy, retailing 4G-enabled smartphones for as little as Sh7,499 to empower underserved communities," Vodacom said.

The plant is part of Safaricom’s strategy to migrate subscribers from older 2G and 3G handsets to internet-enabled 4G and 5G devices as it seeks to grow data revenues.

Under the financing option, customers pay as little as Sh20 a day over nine months.

Vodacom said smartphone users across its markets, including Kenya, rose 16.5 percent to 132.9 million customers in the year ended March 2026.

The company is targeting 143 million smartphone users in the current financial year as it pursues its goal of raising smartphone penetration to more than 75 percent by 2030.

Besides EADAK, asset financing firm M-KOPA also assembles smartphones locally.

Last month, M-KOPA said it had produced 3.2 million smartphones in Kenya since launching local assembly operations in January 2023, with most devices sold through its pay-as-you-go financing model.