The African cell phone market grew 4.6% QoQ in the fourth quarter of 2020, according to the latest data released by IDC. At the same time, sales of phones themselves grew by 7.6% QoQ, while sales of smartphones by 0.7%.
Compared to the data for the fourth quarter of 2019, sales of smartphones decreased by 5.5%, while sales of phones decreased by 8.0%. In general, the market of cell phones and smartphones in annual terms decreased by 10.0%. Analysts attribute this to the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The smartphone market leader is Transsion, offering devices under the Tecno, Itel and Infinix brands. Their combined share is 48.2%. The second and third places are occupied by Samsung and Oppo with shares of 16.1% and 6.4%, respectively. It is noteworthy that the average selling price of smartphones increased by 5.6% compared to the previous quarter. This is due to the release of new models in the middle and upper price ranges. Sales of devices in the lowest price-range (less than $ 80) declined by 14.5% for the quarter, while sales in the $ 200-300 range saw the highest growth of 43.7%.
IDC: The smartphone market has returned to growth
Experts of the analytical company IDC summed up the results of the fourth quarter of 2020 and the whole year in general on the smartphone market. As stated in the corresponding report, the smartphone market returned to growth. Sales in the fourth quarter of 2020 were 385.9 million units, which is 4.3% more than smartphones sold in the fourth quarter of 2019. At the same time, for the entire 2020, smartphones were sold 5.9% less than in 2019.
At the end of the fourth quarter of 2020, Apple was named the market leader. It was able to increase sales in annual terms; that is, compared to the same quarter of the previous year, by 22.2% – from 73.8 to 90.1 million devices. This led to an increase in Apple’s share from 19.9% to 23.4%. The second place is occupied by Samsung, which in annual terms increased sales by 6.2%, as a result of which its share increased from 18.8% to 19.1%. The third place is taken by Xiaomi. Its share increased from 8.9% to 11.2%. The top five also include Oppo and Huawei. Also, The share of Oppo increased from 8.3% to 8.8%. The share of Huawei decreased from 15.2% to 8.4%.
As for 2020 as a whole, Samsung remained the leader with 20.6% of the market. Apple is in second place with 15.9%. The share of Huawei, which is in third place at the end of 2020, is 14.6%. The fourth-place belongs to Xiaomi, whose share is 11.4%, the fifth – to Vivo, whose share is 8.6%. In 2019, Samsung’s share was 21.6%, Apple’s 13.9%. Huawei – 17.5%, Xiaomi – 9.2%, Vivo – 8.0%.
