According to Counterpoint’s Market Monitor service, TECNO, the biggest brand in Transsion’s family, saw smartphone shipments grow across all regions in Q3 2023, by an impressive 62% YoY. This underpinned Transsion’s results, which saw smartphone shipments for the quarter increase 36% YoY.
With 4% of the global smartphone market in Q3 2023, TECNO is now the world’s 9th largest smartphone brand. Their growth is particularly impressive considering market share has more than trebled in just three years. This also helped parent company Transsion becoming one of the world’s top 5 smartphone OEMs.
While TECNO’s shipments have increased, product mix improvement meant that the proportion of higher-value devices sold has expanded even more. According to Counterpoint’s Global Handset Model Sales service, almost all their smartphones are now equipped with 4G or 5G connectivity. 5G smartphones, which TECNO started shipping only since Q1 2022, have grown rapidly, with volume increasing more than 600% YoY by Q3 2023. Furthermore, sales volume of TECNO’s high end CAMON series and premium end PHANTOM series increased 53% YoY, outpacing company-wide growth rates. The PHANTOM series now accounts for almost 5% of TECNO’s global sales, which is up from only 0.3% a year ago. This will be particularly encouraging for TECNO as it is a sign that its effort to compete in the mainstream of global smartphone industry is bearing fruit, and TECNO is becoming accepted by consumers outside of Africa as a persuasive brand.
In the long term the growth trajectory is favorable, considering megatrends like urbanization, fast-developing connectivity infrastructure, feature phone to smartphone migration, cheaper components, and the spread of digital services, all of which are likely to gather pace.