Am sure everyone has seen, heard of, if not owned a Tecno phone. Tecno is a phone that many of us would love to hate. Tecno is a company that has taken the kenyan and African market in general by storm. it invokes different feelings amongst different people in kenya. Some love it, others despise it while others, well they haven’t decided yet. So what do we need to know about Tecno in kenya?
How they entered the kenyan market,late last decade, through feature phones.
The likes of Tecno T- branded feature phones that offered kenyans a feature phone with cool features of that time ie; camera(never mind the terrible quality) color screen, mp3 players and most importantly internet, @ affordable prices, (below 5k) while such features on ‘big’ brands like Nokia, Sony, Samsung were nowhere close at this price range. With this Tecno wrote out its future plans; to offer affordable phones with awesome features, and this they have managed more so now in the smartphone age.
ORIGIN.
The company started in 2006 in Hong Kong with business focused on the South Asia and African market. Later, they dropped the Asian quest to focus mainly in Africa. For this reason, a simple search on Google won’t lead you to sites like gsmarena since its not well known outside Africa. Tecno dedicated themselves to understanding the African market and I can conclude so far they have succeeded to some extent.
In the smartphone era, Tecno came after the shock waves left by kenya’s pioneering budget smartphone, the ideos. The tecno N3 offered a big screen, better CPU and other improvement and it looked so much like a Samsung galaxy but at a cheap price. This was the major milestone for Tecno future.
Tecno has grown over the years. Back in 2010, it wasn’t easy to differentiate between a genuine Tecno from other Chinese fakes that had flooded the market. But now, Tecno makes awesome phones, especially on a budget, look at phones like the highly successful P series,,H series ,the premium Phantom series, these are pretty good phones.
SUCCESSES
Managed to grip a huge chunk of the Kenyan market. They managed to give big brands like Samsung, Sony, Hauwei a run for their money. In most cases, per price bracket range, tecno offers better specs compared to the big brands.
They have a large phone selection*. This is both a good and bad thing. The good is that Tecno has managed to create a phone for everyone. Small phones: P3,N3etc , medium p5,h6 p6, f5, f6 etc big phones phantom A, Z, D9, tablets, etc. Also with price and quality variety. Eg the super affordable Y series, midrangers and premium phantom series.
Warranty and services.
The worst experience is to own a phone thats not easy to repair or find spair parts. Phones are prone to failures be they presale or after sale. Thanks to Calcare services, Tecno phone are to some extent immune too this. Any fault on the phone that is not due to the user is serviced for free while repairs are done at an affordable price too.
FAILURES
Tecno has had its bad days some of which are;
Flooded portfolio. Tecno in a bid to make a phone for every one has flooded the market with phones that are in most cases almost identical and only differentiated by names, or just a few changes. eg H3,M3, similar save for battery, H6 and P6 similar save for resolution, selfie camera.
It is rather anoying how tecno names their gadgets. I mean, the alphabet in any order. Take any alphabet, say the first or last letter of your name, there is a high chance there esists such a tecno. Fiona, tecno F5,F6, James, J7,J5. Chebet, camon C5,C8, or just think of something wierd, eg, you love the D, well there is a D series, D7, love the P, there’s a P series. P3,P5,P6.. I think you get the picture. I just wonder what they’ll do once they run out of alphabets.!
Tecno is terrible at seeding updates. This can be blamed on the large number of phones they produce. But atleat they should update their flagships eg the Phantom A and R7 are stuck with jelly bean and phamtom Z with kitkat!
this is bad news for users. Its sad that tecno wants you to update by upgrading to a new phone. Sad but true. I hope they work it out soon.
Tecno isn’t loved by many. The name it self isn’t appealing. I think a rebrand wouldn’t hurt. Its common for most people to dismiss Tecno as a cheap Chinese fake! Yet its not. Lets say their future is unclear.
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