African Smartphone users, primarily in Nigeria and South Africa, will soon have a device for their smartphones and tablets that will work during power outages - a portable charger that uses hydrogen fuel cells, Reuters reports.
"In emerging markets where the grids are not reliable and people are using [mobile phones] as a primary device, it is mission critical; if you're out, you're out," Amar Samra, consumer electronics managing director of British company Intelligent Energy, told Reuters during a telecoms conference in Cape Town on Nov. 14.
Intelligent Energy has been testing the new chargers in Nigeria for the last five months, and so far they have proved to be successful devices. The company plans to roll out 1 million of them in mid-December, mainly to Nigerian and South African users.
"Alternative sources of power are very important [across Africa], because smartphones and other devices need lots of power and you need to charge up every four hours, so for a businessman it is crucial," Melvin Angula, an engineer who attended the conference in Cape Town, said to Reuters.
According to Samra, consumers can expect to pay less than $5 to refuel their chargers using a non-disposable cartridge, which translates to the cost of less than $1 to charge a phone, although final costs will depend upon how telecom companies market and sell the new product. The chargers reportedly fit easily into a handbag, and will retail around $200, or $10 a month for a two-year contract.
Smartphone traffic is predicted to increase across Africa tenfold between 2013 and 2019, Ericsson predicts, with around 476 million devices in use.
"We always have problems with cell batteries, so everybody will be keen for portable energy. But, it has to be the right price for it to fly in our markets," businessman Thabo Magagula, who also attended the conference, said to Reuters.
