The new shop sells Ditec branded products such as laptops, cellphones, desktop computers, televisions and 4G wifi routers, which can be used on any mobile network. The laptop models range from i3, i5 and i7 while phones include feature phones, feature smartphones, 3G and 4G phones. These are assembled at his plant housed at Botswana Innovation Hub that was opened last year.
Trading as Dichaba Consumer Electronics, the state-of-the-art electronics assembly facility has the capacity to employ close to 100 people and another 100 when operating 24 hours. Dichaba’s journey started in 2016 with the production of the Pioneer phone, followed by the Destiny phone in 2017 and Botswana Telecommunications Corporation (BTC) touch phone in 2018 when he secured a three-year contract with local mobile operator BeMobile now BTC Mobile. Through his phones, he has managed to penetrate African markets including Mozambique, Kenya, Tanzania, DRC, Ghana, Zambia and Namibia. With sales experiencing growth, the time seemed ripe for the serial entrepreneur to diversify and produce more electronics at his plant.
Lesedi Sebako, Ditec Public Relations and Marketing Manager, told Business Monitor that penetrating the market that was dominated by well establish international brands was not easy for Ditec, but still, the company managed to get its own share of the pie. “We produce quality products that compete in the regional space for example our routers’ battery can last for six hours and can connect close to 30 devices. We do have quality phones at affordable prices,” she said. As part of the company's expansion plans, Sebako said they will be introducing Ditec smart fridges, deep freezers, student laptops and rocket laptops before the end of this year.
“We really believe in local empowerment as we also have plans to open more stores across the country through franchises where Batswana would be given an opportunity to be part of Ditec. We have been customising phones for other companies operating in countries like Mozambique, Angola, South Africa and Tanzania,” she said.
To be the preferred service manufacturer in Africa, the company has also been identifying strategic partners in other African countries to achieve this goal. Ditec mobile phones are available in most mobile phone shops across the country including Mobile Joint, Yash Cells, Zain Collections and Cell City to mention but a few.
