Condor at MWC: China in Africa?
1.3.2018
Translation: machine translated
Video: Stephanie Tresch
At the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, a brand from Algeria is presenting a smartphone that costs slightly more than an average monthly wage in the country. This is a sour pill to swallow and paints a rather ugly, albeit blurred, picture of the Algerian economy. There are also suspicions that China is involved.
The stand looks smart. White with grey, a large video screen and nice-looking attendants. This is the stand of Algerian smartphone manufacturer Condor, which unveiled its new flagship a few days ago.
However, the whole thing leaves a somewhat stale aftertaste.
The People's Democratic Republic of Algeria is not known as a technology metropolis. Algeria exports gas to Europe and has the 16th largest oil reserves in the world. Smartphones don't really fit in there.
The Algerian manufacturer Condor wants to change that. Condor wants to conquer the world with its Android smartphones. Condor is currently doing business in several African countries such as Benin, Morocco and Tunisia. Plus France. But Condor does not want to stop there. The visit to the Mobile World Congress with its smart stand is intended to open the door to the world.
The device that will allow Condor to open up new countries is the Allure M2. The phone, which comes in both black and gold, is prominently displayed at the stand. There are other phones at the back, but they are hardly noticed. The large video wall at the stand shows a small company profile and a lot of the Allure M2.
The hands-on: this isn't Algeria, is it?
The specs of the Condor Allure M2 sound good:
- 6-inch screen diagonal
- Double rear camera: 13 megapixel and 5 megapixel
- Double front camera: 20 megapixel and 8 megapixel
- F-Stop front: f/2.0 and f/2.4
- MediaTek Helio P25 Octa Core system-on-a-chip
- 4 or 6 GB RAM
- 64 or 128 GB internal memory
- 4010 mAh battery
When looking through the specs, it is noticeable that it hardly differs from the somewhat more prestigious no-name phones from Shenzhen. Great-sounding camera specs, relatively average RAM, a large battery and, above all, a MediaTek processor. There's not one feature that somehow points to China, but the package is generic enough to make you suspect that there's not much Algeria in it.
When using the device, this becomes even clearer. The Android distro on the Allure M2 is as generic as they come. With all the pastel-coloured and iPhone-inspired elements that can be found in generic Shenzhen distros.
Although the video wall at the booth shows happy Algerian workers in a Condor factory, I highly doubt that research and development happens in Algeria. It is possible that the devices are built in Algeria. But everything else smells strongly of China.
The problem with the Allure M2
The Condor Allure M2 is actually unremarkableThat's an absurdly high figure, even if the Swiss are able to make the gross price easy. Even the iPhone X with its 1359 francs list price at digitec doesn't cost that much in comparison. On average, a Swiss person earns 5979 francs, which, with a 42-hour week, means 36 hours of work before the iPhone is earned.
But: Wage levels have improved significantly. No wonder, because in 2002 the North African country was still in the throes of civil war, which probably didn't help the economy outside the military sector - which still employs 32 per cent of the country's workers.
All of these calculations are rough estimates and therefore correct on a hand-times-pi basis. But the picture is clear. The Allure M2 is not made for every Algerian. Or for every person in Benin, as the country regularly appears on lists of the poorest countries in the world.
Journalist. Author. Hacker. A storyteller searching for boundaries, secrets and taboos – putting the world to paper. Not because I can but because I can’t not.
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