Although the global smartphone market is becoming increasingly saturated, it is still worth looking forward to demand in emerging markets such as Southeast Asia and Africa when caught in an environment with limited momentum. . Due to the recent expansion of infrastructure construction in Africa, the regional smartphone market has the opportunity to replicate the prior development path of Thailand, Vietnam, and Indonesia. TrendForce forecasts total smartphone shipments in Africa to reach approximately 107 million units in 2022. Sub-Saharan Africa, which accounts for 78% of Africa’s total population, holds the greatest potential and countries such as Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal, and Tanzania are worthy of attention.

Taking the Sahara Desert as a natural barrier, North Africa cleaves closer to Europe and the Middle East, modernizing earlier, and possessing higher GDP per capita and relatively greater spending power. Looking at Egypt, its mainstream smartphone brands in 2021 were Samsung, OPPO, and Xiaomi. As for Africa south of the Sahara, taking Nigeria as an example, mainstream brands are TECNO, Infinix, and Itel, which is very different from the Egyptian market. TECNO, Infinix, and Itel are owned by Transsion Holdings of China and, in terms of the overall African smartphone market, Transsion Holdings is already dominant. These three brands captured an estimated combined market share of approximately 52% in 2021, eclipsing Samsung’s 15%.

TrendForce believes that mainstream mobile phone brands in Africa are very different from markets in Europe, North America, and East Asia and are mainly influenced by factors such as local spending power, communication services, and user needs, while mobile phone pricing is undoubtedly the decisive factor. For example, approximately 60% of smartphones sold in Egypt are priced between $100 and $200. While in sub-Saharan Africa, excluding a few countries with high GDP per capita such as Gabon and South Africa, most smartphones are sold at below US$100 in the market. However, from the perspective of mainstream global smartphone brands, the price of low-end smartphones is still higher than US$160 which remains quite unaffordable for the majority of local consumers. This pricing gap gives TECNO, Infinix, and Itel more room to operate.

In addition, the reason Transsion Holdings’ brands can dominate the African smartphone market includes many localized marketing strategies in addition to price factors. For example, cleaving close to local consumption habits, setting up physical sales locations, launching models that support 4 sim cards to meet the needs of users with multiple phone numbers, or installing large-capacity batteries in low-end mobile phones to reduce the inconvenience of frequent searches for charging stations, all of which help to enhance the competitive strength of the Transsion brand. Transsion Holdings is expected to continue leading the African market from 2022 to 2025.

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