Kenya's Budget Phone Arena Gets a New Player in the Name of Lava

Kenya’s smartphone market is one that has seen its fair share of new entrants and some high profile exits. From big names like Sony, LG, Alcatel and Motorola, to less known brands like Wileyfox, Wiko, Obi, X-Touch and a few others, the smartphone space in Kenya has been unforgiving to them as they have all closed shop after a few unsuccessful attempts in the market.

This, however, has not deterred ambitious smartphone brands from making a play in the said market. The latest to set foot in Kenya is Indian smartphone maker Lava who specifically targets budget smartphone buyers with offerings across the range from Kes.1,200 feature phones to Kes.14,000 smartphones, with the hope of capturing significant market share with their portfolio.

Lava in itself has significant market share in its home country, as it is the fifth-largest feature phone maker by sales volume in India while selling their phones in a total of 17 other countries, Kenya being the latest. Kenya is not the first market that Lava has a presence in the continent, the company has been in existence in other markets such as Nigeria, Ghana, Egypt and South Sudan.

As mentioned earlier, the company does offer budget smartphones with different series of phones:

Lava Champion – feature phones

Lava Iris – entry-level smartphones, targetting mostly first-time smartphone buyers with a price tag of sub-1ok

Lava Z – These will be the company’s most expensive phones that are still budget, with a possible price tag of less than 20k

As of now, the company already sells a few devices through online retailer Jumia and partner offline stores. Here are the Lava phones you can currently buy:

Lava Z81

Display: 5.7″ HD+
Software: Android 8.1 Oreo
Processor: Quad-core Helio A22
Memory: 2GB RAM + 16GB storage or 3GB RAM + 32GB storage
Camera: 13MP main camera + 13MP selfie camera
Battery:3000mAh
Features: FM radio, Fingerprint reader, 4G
Price: Kes.13,999 (32GB) or Kes.11,999 (16GB)

Lava Iris 51

Display: 5.0″ HD+
Software: Android 8.0 Oreo (Go Edition)
Processor: Unspecified MediaTek Quad-core
Memory: 1GB RAM + 8GB storage
Camera: 8MP main camera + 5MP selfie camera
Battery: 2500mAh
Features: FM radio
Price: Kes.6,499

Feature Phones

Lava Champion N1

Lava Champion A1 – Kes.2,000
Lava Champion C1 – Kes.1,600
Lava Champion N1 – Kes.1,300

During the launch, the company also announced that they would be bringing more phones into the market; Lava Z92, Lava Z1, Lava Iris 42 and Lava Z50 pro in the coming days.

Updated on February 12, 2019:

Made changes to the feature phone pricing