Mi-Fone, an African mobile devices brand has unveiled its new range of innovative smartphones into the Nigeria market.
The company, which was founded in 2008, has smartphones that operates on the Android system and come pre-embedded with localised apps such as Nigerian taxi app, easyTaxi, Nigerian music blog apps respectively.
Others are, inguu, the innovative music upload service app called puresolo and the famous 360Nobs Nigerian social media app.
Speaking during the event in Lagos recently, the Chief Executive Officer, Mi-Group International Limited, Mr. Alpesh Patel said the range would also feature the company’s owned Oju Africa app
He explained that Oju Africa first garnered international attention with the launch of the first ethnically diverse emoticons.
"In fact, in the past three weeks the Afro Emoticons from Oju Africa have had the world abuzz, with over 22,000 downloads of the free app from Google Play in just four days of, which the majority of those downloads have originated from the United State," he said.
Patel also pointed out that, Oju, powered by Mi-Fone literally meaning “faces” in the Yoruba language from Nigeria, is an innovation born out of the motherland.
He further noted the full range of 65 Afro emoticons were designed to be used across all Android platforms and added that Oju will be released shortly on IOS and other platforms.
"Yet the digital space is not the only area they are intended to live. Oju is an African innovation and character that we have no doubt will become an iconic pc character across the globe, "he said.
He, however, said that Africa does not have its own Mickey Mouse or Hello Kitty until now with Oju.
He also hinted the African character, which would be licensed out via emoticons in the digital space, and via a traditional character in industries.