What They Say
Africa’s overall mobile phone market shipments declined 6.0% year on year (YoY) in Q3 2020 according to IDC. The decline stemmed mainly from feature phones, with shipments of these devices declining 11.2% YoY in Q3 2020 to total 29.4 million units.
By contrast, smartphone shipments were up a healthy 14.1% YoY, with 22.9 million smartphones shipped to the region during the quarter. The growth of the smartphone market was caused by the release of pent-up demand after countries eased their COVID-19 lockdown restrictions and by a shift in vendor strategies to offer more entry-level flagship models.
Egypt and Nigeria both posted YoY growth in Q3 2020, while South Africa suffered a YoY decline.
Transsion brands (Tecno, Itel, and Infinix) continued to dominate Africa’s smartphone space in Q3 2020, with 42.2% unit share. Samsung and Huawei followed in second and third place, with respective unit shares of 19.9% and 8.7%. The Transsion brands (Tecno and Itel) also dominated the feature phone landscape with a combined share of 76.6%. Nokia came in third with 8.0% share of feature phone shipments.
In terms of price bands, devices priced below $200 accounted for 89.3% of smartphone shipments to Africa in Q3 2020. The share of smartphones priced below $100 declined slightly from 53.8% in Q2 2020 to 53.0% in Q3 2020, while the share of devices priced $100-$200 increased from 34.7% to 36.3% over the same period.
What We Think
The end of growth in the smartphone market will, we would expect, expand the share of the market that is mainly price sensitive. (BR)
