Orange’s new 3G smart feature phone wants to democratise access to the Internet in Africa

French telecom giant, Orange has launched a phone with voice recognition at $20 in 16 countries in Africa and the Middle East, in partnership with KaiOS Technologies and UNISOC.

According to the telco, Orange customers in Mali, Burkina Faso and Côte d’Ivoire will have access to a new category of smart feature phones powered by KaiOS, the operating system from KaiOS Technologies, starting from April 2019, with other countries following later in the year.

Powered by the UNISOC SC7731EF chipset platform with a long-lasting battery life of up to 5 days, 3G+, Torch, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, combined with advanced smartphone-like functionalities, the smart feature phone, known as Sanza will be commercialised with a dedicated offer (voice/text/data) starting around $20 (depending of the country), that will help customers to optimise their budget.

Thanks to Google Assistant, Sanza will help overcome language and literacy challenges, as our customers can access information and applications on the device easily, just with their voice, and without having to type. The Google Assistant understands multiple French and English accents, with more languages to come later this year. The phone menu is available in Arabic, Swahili, Portuguese, English and French.

This new phone will also give access to applications such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Google Search and Google Maps, as well as Orange Money, the flagship mobile-based money transfer and financial services offer and My Orange, the application to monitor your mobile consumption, among other things.