Econet Broadband unleashes Huawei Ideos pair

After we announced the launch of Huawei’s Ideos S7 Tablet in South Africa a few months ago and the company’s stated intentions to conquer Africa with affordable Android devices, Econet Wireless has come out with a double punch. The company has introduced the Huawei Ideos S7 tablet and the Ideos Google phone at $450 and $165 respectively.

Although the prices are not as great as those found abroad, they are interesting enough to cause an upset on the local market where even OEM vendors like Swav were hedging their tablets at prices upwards of $500. We expect the Huawei Ideos phone to make a big impact locally as it has done in Kenya, where it is the best selling smartphone. It even trumps G-Tide’s pricing for an Android smartphone as the ‘local brand’ is pushing its units for $200.

Both devices are available at Econet Shops and come with 50mb per month for a year on the tablet and 25mb free per month per year for the smartphone. On another note, Econet appears to be on a fine run of late. For starters its recent ads no longer have silly mistakes of old while the rationalisation of its pricing regime continues.

It recently reduced pricing for the etxt service from 5c to 2c and needs to make a similar move for data as it currently has the most expensive entry level bundles locally. The company is headed in the right direction where improvements to its goliath image (how ironic)  is concerned. We recently covered its investment into optimising its voice and data services. Hopefully they’ll be no nasty surprises ahead.