Despite experiencing strong growth across Africa over the past decade, smartphones still have not managed to overtake feature phones as the dominant handset.
In fact, a slowdown took place across the board in smartphone shipments to Africa, yet the overall mobile phone market share of feature phones increased for the first time in six years – from 53% in 2015 to 56% in 2016. Altogether, mobile phone shipments to the continent rose by 10% last year, reaching a milestone of more than 200 million for the first time.
According to a Quartz Africa report, estimates by the IDC show that Samsung remains the market leader on the continent. Meanwhile, Chinese-owned Transsion Holdings (which boasts brands such as Infinix, Tecno and Itel) outperformed its main competitors in terms of feature phone shipments in 2016.
