Transsion Group, the mother company of consumer electronics brands such as Tecno, Infinix, itel and others, is now the world’s fifth-largest seller of smartphones, the latest data shows.
Data from market research firm Canalys shows that in the second quarter of the year, which just wrapped up, Transsion shipped 22.7 million smartphones, accounting for 9% of all the smartphones shipped around the world at that time.
Transsion, which has its origins in China, has seen its dominance in the global smartphone market buoyed by the quick recovery of the African smartphone market which it has dominated for years and where its Tecno, Infinix and itel smartphones remain extremely popular. In Kenya, its smartphones make up about half of the devices on the country’s biggest telecommunications company’s network.
According to Canalys, Africa’s smartphone market has registered a faster and more impressive post-pandemic recovery at a time when other regions are still experiencing pandemic hangovers and stuck in sluggish growth. That Q2 traditionally sees far fewer new smartphone launches compared to the other quarters of the year also didn’t help matters. This can be seen in the overall dip in global smartphone shipments by 10% year-over-year to stand at 258.2 million units in Q2.
Things are not expected to get better than this for the remainder of the year. “We anticipate a moderate decline in the global smartphone market in 2023,” says Amber Liu, an analyst at Canalys.
Another Chinese company, Oppo, is fourth in the global smartphone shipment rankings with 10% market share after shipping out over 25 million smartphones in the last quarter.
Samsung remains the top smartphone vendor in the world, shipping 53 million smartphone units in Q2 2023. Apple follows with 43 million iPhone shipments in the said quarter while Xiaomi wraps up the top 3 list with over 33 million units of its smartphones being shipped in Q2.
