Eleven months after opening its first African manufacturing facility, Sun King, the off-grid solar startup, is now producing smartphones in Kenya as it extends its PayGo model into the country's growing financed-device market. The pay-as-you-go approach, which lets customers pay in small instalments until they own the product, was popularised in East Africa partly through mobile money platforms such as M-PESA, which made frequent low-value payments practical for customers without bank accounts.

The move places the company in direct competition with M-KOPA and Watu, both of which have built businesses around financing smartphones for customers who might otherwise struggle to afford them.

Sun King's EZ 3 smartphone requires a KES 2,299 ($18) deposit plus KES 55 ($0.43) a day for 365 days, bringing the total cost to KES 22,374 ($173). The company does not offer the phones for outright purchase, Victor Agandi, its vice president for PayGo in East and Southern Africa, told TechCabal in an interview on Thursday. Customers instead enter a financing contract and make payments over the course of a year.

"A good phone should not need a large sum of money on one single day. Most people do not have that," Agandi said at the EZ 3 launch. "But almost everyone can manage a little each day."

Sun King entered Kenya in 2009 as Greenlight Planet, selling off-grid solar products through small instalments. It has since built a large distribution network and claims one in five Kenyan households has access to a Sun King product.

In October 2025, the company opened a manufacturing facility in Tatu City, a large planned development north of Nairobi, with capacity to produce up to 700,000 units a year. The plant assembles smartphones and solar-powered televisions, extending a business that previously relied more heavily on imported finished products.

In February 2026, Sun King launched its first branded smartphone, the EZ 1, in Kenya at KES 2,999 ($23) upfront and KES 60 ($0.46) a day. The EZ 3 offers a cheaper daily payment and deposit for a 6.75-inch display, 5,000mAh battery, 4GB RAM, and 64GB storage.

The company is entering a segment dominated by M-KOPA, which sells its own smartphones alongside Samsung models and offers daily, weekly, or monthly repayment plans. Watu, a Kenyan digital credit company, finances Samsung devices through its connectivity business alongside its larger motorcycle and tuk-tuk financing operations.

Sun King's own catalogue shows the pricing pressure. Its Tecno Pop 10 requires KES 2,799 ($22) upfront and KES 55 ($0.43) a day for 364 days. The Infinix Smart 10 has the same daily payment and a KES 2,799 ($22) deposit, while the Samsung A06 requires KES 2,899 ($22) upfront and KES 60 ($0.46) a day.

Sun King's local factory and existing agent network provide an additional competitive edge in price and financing. The EZ 3 remains unlocked while customers keep up with payments, with repayments made through the phone's lock screen, the Sun King app, SIM Toolkit, or USSD. The lock gives the lender control of the device if the customer stops paying, a mechanism widely used in device-financing markets across Africa and other emerging regions.

Attempts to bypass similar controls have already emerged in Kenya, including cases involving flashing financed phones and altering IMEI numbers. An active market for unlocking would weaken the security that allows companies to extend financing to customers who may not qualify for conventional credit.

The model remains attractive because the smartphone itself has become part of how many customers work and earn. GSMA, the global mobile industry association, found that 86% of male and 79% of female micro-entrepreneurs used mobile phones for business in 2024, while a 2026 Nairobi study by the International Growth Centre found that a smartphone-based point-of-sale app improved record-keeping, inventory management and daily sales.

"People want a phone that works, payments they can manage and a company they can trust," Catherine Mudachi, Sun King's global vice president for marketing, said at the launch.

Sun King's move comes as Kenya's smartphone market becomes harder to define simply by ownership. With smartphones already ahead of feature phones in connected-device numbers, the commercial opportunity lies in financing upgrades and first-time purchases for consumers who have the income to repay but not enough cash to buy upfront. For Sun King, smartphones also deepen a decade-long relationship with off-grid customers, selling them a second financed product through the same channels that carried its solar lamps and televisions.