Alcatel to launch SA Firefox phones

Johannesburg - Chinese owned phone maker Alcatel OneTouch will be among the first to bring smart-phones equipped with the Firefox operating system (OS) to South Africa.

Web browser organisation Mozilla last week announced a partnership with mobile network MTN to bring the smart-phone based Firefox OS to SA.

Firefox OS is a web-based system offering an alternative to the likes of Google’s Android.

And Ernst Wittmann, Alcatel OneTouch Southern Africa country manager, told Fin24 that his company is readying to launch Firefox phones in SA that cost less than R2 000 in 2015.

“We’ve been around forever but gone through different stages,” Wittman told Fin24, referring to the company’s latest adoption of the Firefox OS.

Alcatel formed part of the first batch of cellphones sold in South Africa when Vodacom and MTN started cellular networks in 1994.

Since then, Alcatel has undergone changes with China’s TCL Communication forming a joint partnership with France’s Alcatel Lucent in 2004 to manage its handset business. Alcatel Lucent later sold its shares in its handset business to TCL and the brand today is known as Alcatel OneTouch.

Targeting South Africa’s cost-conscious

Wittmann told Fin24 that Alcatel OneTouch currently partners with MTN and Vodacom to sell its smart-phones via retail channels such as PEP stores.

“We’re not a tier-one device,” Wittmann said, referring to smartphone makers such as Samsung and Apple.

But he said that Alcatel OneTouch devices offer higher quality than “tier-two” device ranges: a category reserved for the likes of China’s ZTE.

In South Africa, Alcatel OneTouch also has a 14-15% of the country’s smart-phone market, Wittmann said.

“We are targeting our devices at cost-conscious consumers,” said Wittmann.

Steven Ambrose, CEO of technology research firm Strategy Worx, told Fin24 last week that 35% of all handsets in South Africa are smartphones, with this figure expected to reach over 50% in 2015.

Ambrose also expressed concern over whether Firefox phones could have traction in the SA market. Firefox's mobile application marketplace has to compete with that of Android's, which has over one million apps.

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