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Afridigest Intelligence Brief: A look at Africa's smartphone market
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Afridigest Intelligence Brief: A look at Africa's smartphone market

Device affordability is among the key factors in bringing new folks online and innovators are tackling that challenge in various ways.

Emeka Ajene's avatar
Emeka Ajene
Jun 07, 2023
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Afridigest
Afridigest Intelligence Brief: A look at Africa's smartphone market
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Afridigest is your intelligent guide to Africa’s tech ecosystem. We provide ideas, analysis, & insights for Africa-focused founders, executives, and investors.
As promised, welcome to the first Afridigest Intelligence Brief! Today, we’re looking at Africa’s smartphone market. Here’s what’s below:
• Low-end smartphones dominate Africa
• Afridigestibles
• Pop quiz
• Two players control the smartphone market
• One player is putting their thumb on the scale*
• The most popular smartphone models in Nigeria today*
• Case study: smartphone financing*
• Case study: smart feature phones*
• Case study: smartphone 're-commerce'*
• Next steps*
• Quiz answer*
• Sources*
If you’re new here: welcome. We usually send a Monday Week in Review, a Sunday Fintech Review, and the occasional Saturday essay. We’re changing things up a bit this month with some new content on Wednesdays though. For past essays and digests, visit the archive & Afridigest.com.

Your feedback on this Intelligence Brief is very much appreciated — simply reply to this email. 🙏🏽

Low-end smartphones dominate Africa


Afridigestibles

>80% of smartphones shipped into Africa are under $200.

>40% of smartphones shipped into Africa are under $100.

51% of total mobile connections in sub-Saharan Africa (excluding licensed cellular IoT) are smartphones.

Africa's top 3 smartphone markets are South Africa, Nigeria, and Egypt.


Pop quiz

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Two players control the smartphone market

Africa’s smartphone market is largely a duopoly with China’s Transsion and South Korea’s Samsung accounting for over 70% of the market.

Top vendors in the ‘others’ category include Mobicel, HMD (Nokia), Huawei, and Apple.


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