File photo shows a participant uses the new smart phone called "Tecno Spark" during its launch in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Sept. 16, 2017. (Xinhua/Michael Tewelde)

ADDIS ABABA, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) -- Few Ethiopians have heard of Transsion, a Chinese phone maker based in Shenzhen. However, millions of Ethiopians use its mobile handset products.

Two of Transsion's affordable and quality mobile brands, Tecno and Itel, are wildly popular in Ethiopia and other parts of Africa.

Transsion employs 1,800 Ethiopians in its three local plants that produce around 1 million units annually.

On Monday evening, Transsion celebrated a milestone of its presence in Ethiopia, clearing the mark of 100 million U.S. dollars in export of mobile phone products manufactured in its Ethiopian factories in the last two and half years.

The achievement is seen in Ethiopia as a big step forward to fulfilling the country's ambition of becoming a light manufacturing hub in Africa by 2025.

Speaking at a ceremony in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, Yu Weiguo, senior deputy general manager of Transsion Holdings' Business Unit, said the company has managed to face serious challenges since its debut in the country seven years ago.

"In 2011 we started our business in Ethiopia at a very small warehouse, and at that time we faced different challenges and together with government support we resolved all of the issues and now we reached this achievement," Wu said.

Emphasizing that Ethiopia's young export-oriented manufacturing sector needs all the help it can get, Wu thanked the Ethiopian government for helping realize the 100-million-dollar export milestone.

"For countries like China and Vietnam, this amount may be very small, but in Ethiopia I think it's a great achievement, gained with the support of Ethiopian government departments," he said.

Transsion is among many Chinese companies that have established manufacturing plants in Ethiopia.

Liu Yu, economic and commercial counselor at the Chinese Embassy in Ethiopia, said Chinese companies are encouraged to make at least 10 billion dollars in investments in Africa in the next three years.

She praised Transsion for continuing and expanding its investment in Ethiopia over the years, even when the country faced severe foreign exchange shortage, which had particularly affected manufacturing firms.

"Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's government recently published its administrative programs in which investment promotion and export expansion are highly stressed," Liu said. "The shortage of foreign currency can be regarded as the biggest hurdle for sustainable development of Ethiopia's economy. Actually China faced similar difficulty decades ago."

China is now Ethiopia's largest trading partner and Chinese firms are the single biggest source of foreign direct investment in Ethiopia, a fact Teka Gebreyesus, deputy commissioner at Ethiopia Investment Commission, was keen to stress.

"We are expecting more from Chinese phone maker companies, especially in the export side," he said. "Transsion is planning to manufacture some of the mobile phone parts in Ethiopia's industrial parks."

"It's amazing for Ethiopians seeing the country exporting mobile phones to other countries. Transsion is an exemplary company for other Chinese companies as well," Gebreyesus said.