this african guy's life is full of "made in china"
2024-08-31
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nairobi, august 31 (xinhua) -- wind oil known as the "oriental magic oil", fashionable wigs for styling, smartphones with powerful beauty functions, electric motorcycles that can flexibly travel through congested streets, e-commerce platforms that allow shopping anytime and anywhere... "made in china" products that are popular in africa are becoming more and more rich and diverse, touching every aspect of african people's lives.
if you want to know how much african people cannot do without these "made in china" products, both large and small, you can get a glimpse of it from the life of elijah mwandawire, a resident of nairobi, the capital of kenya.
after dinner in the evening, e-commerce boss elijah turned on the tv and watched a popular local dating variety show on the streaming platform of the chinese company startimes group. he is a paid subscriber of the startimes streaming platform and often "chase dramas" on it. "i am a loyal user of 'startimes' and a fan of jackie chan. there are many chinese kung fu action movies to watch on the platform."
nairobi resident elijah mwandawire watches a variety show on a streaming platform owned by chinese company startimes. photo by ronald njorogea message came from vivo phone - a customer placed an order! elijah looked away from the tv and picked up his phone to talk to the customer, confirm the order, check the inventory, and prepare for shipment...
elijah is an e-commerce boss who sells smart tvs on kilimall. kilimall is a localized e-commerce platform founded by a chinese company in kenya. after years of development, it has become one of the most popular shopping websites for africans. so far, more than 8,000 chinese and african companies and individual sellers are active on kilimall, with more than 10,000 stores on the platform and millions of products on sale.
"every year on black friday, kilimall holds promotions and generates considerable revenue," said elijah.
e-commerce is an important sector of the rapid development of china-africa economic and trade cooperation. in addition to kilimall, chinese cross-border e-commerce platforms such as alibaba international station, jiku, and xiyin have also entered the african market. accelerating the training of cross-border e-commerce talents between china and africa and promoting the improvement of e-commerce capabilities of african youth are important means to effectively promote the development of cross-border e-commerce between china and africa.
nairobi resident elijah mwandawire uses a chinese-brand smartphone at home. photo by ronald njorogeten years ago, elijah was fired by a foreign telecommunications company. it was through a chinese-made smartphone that he actively embraced the digital age, "restarted" his life, and eventually became an e-commerce boss.
when elijah was newly unemployed, he found that chinese-made mobile phones were reasonably priced and very suitable for the needs of african users, so he bought a transsion phone. this was his first contact with chinese manufacturing, "since then, all my mobile phones are chinese brands, because they have all the latest features and are affordable."
this is a chinese transsion brand mobile phone photographed in nairobi, the capital of kenya, on november 8, 2023. photo by xinhua news agency reporter li yahuitranssion mobile phones are popular in africa and are known as the "king of mobile phones in africa". in order to meet the photography needs of african consumers, transsion has extensively collected photos of local africans, conducted facial contour, exposure compensation, and imaging effect analysis, and developed skin beautification modes for local users. in addition, many african consumers have more than two mobile phone cards, but cannot afford to buy multiple mobile phones. aiming at this demand, transsion launched three-sim three-standby and four-sim four-standby mobile phones in africa.
today, elijah is living a prosperous life and is already a father of two children. with a little savings, he plans to upgrade his means of transportation and buy a chinese dayun motorcycle.
dayun motorcycles are "very popular in kenya. they are reliable and powerful, and it is easy to find parts and repair them," said elijah. "when i was running orders and meeting customers, nairobi's public transportation was unreliable, so my friends all suggested that i buy dayun." (reporters: lin jing, li zhuoqun, li hualing, zeng tao)
