Vodafone Ghana said it is the only telecom operator in Ghana to have introduced its own custom-made and original brands of affordable handsets and other smart devices on the Ghanaian market. The company displayed at least 14 Vodafone branded affordable handsets which it has introduced unto the Ghanaian market since it arrived in 2009, having come from the only branded handset called the Onetouch Bogo it inherited from Ghana Telecom. It also displayed a number of smart mid-level devices such as Mi-fi, Torres, Ideos, Webbox and others, all branded Vodafone and tailor-made to meet specific customer needs in Ghana. Vodafone was also the first to introduce some of the smart and high-end devices such as the Samsung Galaxy Tablet, Samsung Galaxy S II, HTC Sensation, and other smart devices in Ghana. A team from Vodafone Terminals' section took journalists through an experiential session of all the devices they have brought to Ghana since 2009 and the team demonstrated how the various categories of devices are relevant to the separate target markets. Portfolio Manager for Terminals at Vodafone Ghana, Evans Boakye said “we are the only telecom company in Ghana that goes to the market to look for what people want then we commission handset manufacturers to design handsets from concept to market to meet the specific needs of the different categories of our customers. “Other telecom operators buy existing brands like Nokia and others and put their sticker on them, but we actually order the phones to be custom-made and branded Vodafone from source,” he said. Mr. Boakye said Vodafone was aware that not everybody could afford the high-end handsets and devices such as Blackberry and the others, so some of the affordable range of phones has been designed to give the customer the feel of a smart phone and also give them access to the internet. Vodafone recorded 32.5% increase in service revenue in the third quarter and much of that is attributed to its value offerings, which included the packages on affordable handsets and devices. Mr. Boakye said the Webbox was one of the affordable custom-made smart devices intended to give customers who could not afford computers the opportunity to get internet access on their television sets at home. He said the Webbox is doing very well on the market but, based on feedback, its features were under review with the view to adding other features like Microsoft Office Word to give users even more options. Mr. Boakye explained that for the middle income people who could not afford high end devices and solutions, Vodafone had introduced devices such as Torres and Mi-Fi to give them Wi-Fi connectivity in their homes for at least five devices that have Wi-fi features. “The Torres works as both a phone and Wi-fi hotspot and can connect at least five other devices to the internet through Wi-fi and the Mi-fi is also a wi-fi hotspot for five devices within the distance of about 40 meters, with password to the device,” he said. Manager in Charge of Terminals, Angela Hesse-Owusu said the varied range of terminals available at Vodafone made the company the number one spot for data and devices in the country. Vodafone is the third biggest operator in Ghana by subscriber base, commanding some 3.89 million customers representing 19.1 per cent market share.