This archive report was first published on 27 July 2019.
Chinese smartphone vendor Vivo is making its entry into the Kenyan market, with the company's intentions first announced years back. As the fifth leading smartphone vendor globally, Vivo has made history with its in-display fingerprint scanner on a mainstream device and recently announced 120W super-fast battery charging.
According to recent teasers by Vivo Kenya on Twitter, the company is working on the world's first smartphone with over 100% screen-to-body ratio. However, before this device is released, Vivo Kenya has been busy making sure that we know it has devices coming soon into the market.
While Vivo Kenya has been teasing the arrival of several devices, it isn't giving out their names. We've seen a device with an all-screen design in a couple of instances, suggesting the selfie shooter pops up like the Huawei Y9 Prime 2019 and Oppo F11 Pro.
However, more recently, the company has been busy showing off images, a few specs, and features of devices we've narrowed down to one or both the Vivo Y12 and Vivo Y15. These two devices were released in June and May 2019, respectively.
Based on the teasers by Vivo Kenya, we've concluded that Vivo may make its debut in Kenya with the Vivo Y12 and/or Vivo Y15. The devices in question have a waterdrop display notch, a triple-lens camera on the back, and a fingerprint scanner. The company further revealed that this device has a massive 5000mAh battery unit and a 6.35-inch display screen with a 19.3:9 aspect ratio.
Other specs include an HD+ screen resolution, triple-lens 13MP + 8MP + 2MP main camera, 16MP (Y15) or 8MP (Y12) selfie camera, 3/32GB or 4/64GB memory for the Y12 and only 4/64GB for the Y15, Bluetooth 5.0, 3.5mm audio jack, microUSB port, and so on. As you may have noted, the only notable difference is the front camera and memory options.
We don't know when exactly Vivo plans to begin selling phones in Kenya or even their pricing strategy.
