Alcatel Phones

I have been receiving questions and emails about Alcatel products so I finally decided it was time to sit down long enough to write some notes about them. Hopefully it helps.

 

A Brief Background of Alcatel (You don’t need to read this!)

Alcatel was first a network equipment manufacturer before they started building phones in 1996 (yes, 1986). They have been in the mobile phone market for about 23 years. Being a network equipment manufacture means they built  transmitters, servers, and switches (among others) that  network operators (such as MTN and Vodafone) used to build their cellular network.

 

In 2004, Alcatel formed a joint venture with TCL Corporation to help TCL from making the leap from being just a Chinese no-name phone manufacturer to the global market.  In less than two years, the partnership broke down and TCL took over the mobile business completely and have been making more phones since then.

Since 2016, TCL (the parent company of Alcatel) has been in partnership with Blackberry as well. They currently build the Blackberry phones in addition to Alcatel and TCL phones.

 

Why Should You Buy and Alcatel Smartphone or product?

Like a typical Ghanaian, I will answer this question with another question. “Why not?”

Alcatel buys the parts they use to build their phone from the same place (source) as other manufactures like Samsung, Huawei,   LG, etc. They use practically the same OS as other Android devices and in terms of quality, Alcatel distributes products all over the world so I expect the same care is taken for all phones coming from their production line. From my personal experience, Alcatel products have better quality that some of those brands designed specifically for Africa so I have no concern buying Alcatel phones. In fact, I prefer it over some for the other brands.

The challenge for Alcatel in Ghana here is that many of the young generation are not very familiar with the brand. This is because (and for reasons I do not know),  Alcatel has not promoted their brand  here in Africa as their competitors do, but it does not in any way has to do with product quality, but with strategy. However, the brand is very popular in both Europe and the Americas (both north and south).

For their general price-point (I mean for how much they go for), it will be unreasonable to compare them to the likes of Apple and Samsung, but in quality-wise, they are comparable to brands like Huawei, Motorola or Xiaomi.

So the answer to our question is not that difficult. If you can get an Alcatel product at a very good price, give it a try and send your feedback. I am sure others would like to know your experience.