NAIROBI, Jan. 31 (Xinhua) -- Kenyans' habit of owning multiple SIM cards is among the things that have helped sustain the feature phones market amid explosion in smartphone use in the country.
Most citizens of the East African nation have more than one SIM card, the main one which they put in the smartphone while the second and even a third that they put in feature phones.
While they mainly use their smartphones to make calls and browse the internet, the feature phones act as a backup, coming in handy especially when the former battery is low or when one losses their stylish gadgets.
The feature phones, initially associated with low-income earners and the rural folks, also help them enjoy services and offers of various mobile telephone companies in the East African nation.
Insurance agent Victoria Mwau is among citizens owning a feature phone - that many still consider outmoded and dumb - despite being a proud user of a 50,000 Kenyan shillings (500 U.S. dollar) smartphone.
"I have a 10-dollar feature phone purely for strategic reasons because of the nature of work I do. As an agent, I must always be available on phone 24 hours because some clients even call me in the dead of the night whenever they have insurance issues, for instance, concerning their cars," she recounted on Thursday.
Since the feature phone has a longer battery life, the line on the phone is the one she gives her clients because they can always find her when they call.
"The gadget has also helped me separate office calls from those of family and friends, which come through the smartphone," she said.
Besides office workers like Mwau, mobile money agents in the East African nation are the other dedicated users of feature phones, with over 90 percent having the gadgets because of their longer battery life.
Central Bank of Kenya data show that the number of mobile money agents stood at 205,745 as of December 2018, forming a huge market for feature phones. The agents helped transact 39 billion dollars in 2018, and most of them using feature phones.
"As an agent, I need a gadget that is efficient in transacting business. Only feature phones offer this efficiency because of their longer battery life. Besides, they are faster in responding to commands, therefore, they make sending, receiving and depositing money easy," said David Muriuki, a mobile money agent with a shop on Kimathi Streets in Nairobi.
The sales of the gadgets are high, according to traders dealing in mobile phones in downtown Nairobi, where most of them are sold.
Chinese brands like Itel and Tecno are among the most popular feature phones in the country, with Nokia and Samsung also having gadgets in the market. Prices range from 8 dollars to 20 dollars.
Affordability, new features like internet connection and camera, durability, utility and longer battery life are some of the things sustaining feature phones market in Kenya, according to Moses Kemibaro, a digital strategist.
He noted that most feature phones are highly utilitarian and focus on simplicity making them appeal to many people, including the older ones and users like mobile money agents.
A research by Counterpoint, a global market monitoring firm, noted that feature phone shipments grew for the fourth consecutive quarter between September and December 2018.
This was in contrast to smartphone shipment, which is experiencing sluggish growth rates, with Africa and Middle East being one of the largest markets of feature phones.
