Finnish mobile developer Jolla announced it's set to build a Sailfish OS ecosystem in Africa, starting from South Africa. Jolla said that the main objective for Sailfish Africa is to gather a group of African investors to develop an independent mobile ecosystem for Africa around its Sailfish operating system for mobile devices. The initiative starts from South Africa, and later the aim is to expand the Sailfish Africa ecosystem to other African countries. Jolla will work with its local partner Sello Rathete, one of the co-founders of South-African operator Cell C, on building support for Sailfish in South Africa.
The launch in South Africa is part of Jolla's attempt to break into the BRICS countries. It recently gained the backing of the Russian government for Sailfish as an alternative to Android's dominance in the smartphone market. Russia’s Minister of Telecom and Mass Communications Nikolay Nikiforov visited last week South Africa to promote the Sailfish OS agenda for BRICS countries to local government officials.
