Transsion holdings, the makers of Techno, Infinix and Itel mobile phones has partnered with Wapi Capital, an African fintech company that is investing and creating solutions in financial services, to find and fund fintech startups under the program Transsion Future Hub.
The Chinese company which is also the largest mobile phone manufacturers and distributors in Africa will use the program to seek and pinpoint innovative African fintech startups from all around the continent to provide funding as well as access to new markets.
On the other hand, Wapi Capital an alumni of Nairobi Garage will take the lead in the identification of early stage fintech (Financial Technology) businesses for the purposes of partnership, providing capital, mentorship and other support to these businesses.
The move by the two parties has been advised by Africa’s growing information technology sector that has been growing at an average of 10-20 percent in various countries and now accounts for up to five percent of the GDP.
According to a 2019 report by Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW) latest report, East Africa’s growth has been reinforced by the development of Kenya’s fintech – providing it with the opportunity to leapfrog other traditional drivers such as agriculture, which has recently been affected by the delayed onset of the long rains season in Kenya.
Transsion is the largest mobile phone manufacturers and distributors in Africa with over 124Million phones sold in 2018 and 4th largest globally.
Some of the companies that Transsion and the future hub have incubated so far include; Boomplay and music platform that provides more than 2 million songs and music videos for 40 million African users, Pheonix Broswer a platform tailor made for Africa and has had a great performance and usability, popular among 30 million users and Scooper, who are also our members at Nairobi Garage is a platform with news, we-media, e-books and UGCs.
The new MOU comes barely a month after Wapi Capital through its Wapi Pay platform partnered with Singapore’s FOMO pay to provide payment solutions between Africa and Asia. In April, Wapi Pay also partnered with Flutterwave a Global payment technology provide to see all Flutterwave merchants in Africa accept and make payments from over 1 billion WeChat customers in China and South East Asia in real time.
TRANSSION’s three mobile phone brands were featured on the 2018/2019 TOP 100 MOST-ADMIRED BRANDS IN AFRICA, a list compiled by African Business, a well-known pan-African business magazine. According to the latest ranking, TECNO, itel and Infinix rank 5th, 17th and 26th respectively.
The market and consumer recognition, reflected in the rankings, acknowledges TRANSSION’s tireless efforts on quality and persistence in its original aspiration. TECNO enters Top 5 for the first time with two places higher from last year, ranking first among the selected Chinese brands consecutively. Itel ranked 2nd among all Chinese brands. Infinix’s ranking has risen by two places from 2018.
Read also: Time for Fintech in Africa to thrive, Kenyan techies commit
