Samsung will be introducing into the Kenyan market some new devices as it seeks to consolidate its position as the dominant smartphone brand. While the newly unveiled Galaxy J5 and J7 take care of the lower mid-range category as the Galaxy A series (A3, A5 and A7) take care of the upper segment and the E series stays exactly at the middle of the two, there hasn’t been much going on at the low end smartphone segment as far as the company’s offerings go.
Galaxy J1s
While the Galaxy J1 is very popular in this market and has been outselling all its competitors, it’s about time it got a refresh. There’s no shortage of leaks and rumours of its potential successors that have been covered in the last few weeks but since there hasn’t been any official word on the same from Samsung, we’ve been kept guessing for long. Well, not anymore. According to Samsung Electronics East Africa’s head of mobile products, Simon Kariithi, Samsung will be introducing the Galaxy J1s as the J1’s successor soon.
Tizen
In order to offer a wide range of low cost offerings, the Galaxy J1s won’t be the only smartphone Samsung will be bringing to the Kenyan (and East African by extension) market. The company will also be introducing its Tizen smartphones as well. The only Tizen smartphone in the market is the Samsung Z1 and it has performed beyond expectations in all the countries it has been launched so far including India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Nepal just joined the list the other day and Kenya could be next soon.
What is not clear at the moment is if Kenya will get the first generation Samsung Z1 or the more refined successor the company has been working on that is expected to be made official any time now.
Tizen is a platform backed by Samsung that the Korean company hopes to eventually use on its smartphones as it looks to build its entire ecosystem of products around it. While there are no immediate signs that Samsung will be ditching Android, through which it has achieved a lot of success in the smartphone market, every other product Samsung is releasing runs on Tizen. Smartwatches, televisions, cameras and soon Internet of Things devices. To prepare users for the eventual change and to ensure familiarity across all its devices, Tizen’s interface looks more like Samsung’s overlay on Android, the TouchWiz user interface. Before making the big plunge, Samsung is testing the waters in a handful of countries with low cost devices. Kenya is set to be one of those. Soon.
