It sounds like they did the design locally and manufactured the boards and case and other such mid-level components. Presumably the highest-end components like displays, processors, and other ICs are imported.
So it's not really manufacturing the entire device locally, but it's a good first step. You gotta take these steps to build local expertise before you can think about building stuff like IC manufacturing that's local in a meaningful way. It sounds like they're on the right track, and I wish them the best.
They "manufacture the phones from the motherboards to the packaging" ... perhaps the case, motherboard, packaging, but still importing the components, in particular the system-on-a-chip and display? In that case, "made entirely" wouldn't be accurate.
Great list. Also a reminder of why they call it Silicon Valley after all... Maybe Rwanda will push towards researching making their own chipset. ARM is kind of a spec and not some specific processor is how I have understood it. You take the spec and design your own processor from it.
I missed that bit, and I didn't think about SPARC / MIPS to be fair. Wasn't there another one recently opened up by IBM? Isn't RISC or RISCV? I only focused on ARM because then you can usually take advantage of Android. I do wish there were competing phone OS' though that were open source as well.
The best measure I know of this is -- cost of the final product minus cost of imported inputs, or that divided by cost of final product.
Ultimately what matters is things like how much value is created in the local economy (employment), and how independent they are from loss of their source of imports.
