KaiOS phone shipments to surge 65% in 2019

Worldwide shipments of smart feature phones running KaiOS are forecast to climb 65% in 2019, with the Africa market being the major growth driver, according to Digitimes Research.
 
KaiOS is the third largest mobile device operating system worldwide. With its successful cooperation with India-based telecom carrier Reliance, the operating system has started expanding into markets outside of India.
 
In 2019, there will be a total of 10 new smart handsets from players in Africa, Indonesia, Brazil and Ukraine that are pre-installed with KaiOS, and the addition of these new phones is expected to dramatically boost KaiOS-based handset shipments in the year, Digitimes Research noted.
 
Smart handsets using KaiOS mostly have similar specifications such as a 2.4-inch display, candybar form factor and 256-512MB of RAM. In 2018, most KaiOS handsets adopted Qualcomm's Snapdragon 205 AP, but in 2019, a majority of new KaiOS devices have turned to solutions from China-based Unisoc.
 
Of the nine KaiOS-based handsets released so far this year, only Energizer Energy 220 series comes with MediaTek's MT6572 processor, while all others are equipped with Unisoc's SC7731 or SC9820E. Sigma Mobile's KaiOS handset will be released later this year.

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