Tecno, Infinix and itel are extending their lead at the top of Africa’s smartphone charts by accounting for nearly half of all the smartphones shipped across the continent between January and March 2023.
With a market share of 48%, Transsion’s market share slipped year-on-year thanks to an overall slump in the smartphone market that has carried on from the previous year. Another Chinese brand, realme, is the only one that was able to register positive growth in its market share year-over-year to garner 3% share of the continent’s competitive smartphone market.
A rise in demand for the brand’s smartphones in Kenya, Algeria and Morocco is being attributed to its growth on the continent over the past year by realme Kenya’s PR and marketing manager, Mildred Agoya.
realme’s C-series smartphones have launched successively in the Kenyan market over the last few months and the company says that it is looking at an aggressive expansion to 15 other markets to attain its goal of shipping over 1 million smartphones. An aggressive expansion plan shouldn’t be mistaken for the brand releasing many smartphones, says Agoya. Instead, realme will cut down on the release of new smartphone models so as to focus on pushing existing popular models.
“This has begun in earnest and we are beginning to see the impact on the market as seen in our first quarter numbers,” said Agoya.
Oppo, Xiaomi are the other members of the top 5 smartphone vendor list in Africa as of Q1 2023, according to research firm Canalys. Samsung, which has trailed Transsion for a while and has switched the top slot with it in the past, retains its second place with the only other double-digit market penetration in the first quarter of the year among the top 5 at 30%.
