• Mobile phone shipments in Africa 2016-2021

The African smartphone market has shown resilience to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, dropping initially during the first quarter of 2020 but remaining steady in the second, with vendors shipping 20.1 million smartphones in both quarters. The third quarter showed signs of recovery with a 2.8 million unit increase, and in the first quarter of 2021 it rose to 23.4 million units shipped. The feature phone market contracted further, however, with vendors shipping 4.87 million fewer feature phones from Q1 to Q2. However, the feature phone market seems to be recovering too, with a six million unit increase from Q2 2020 to Q1 in 2021.

Smartphones in Africa:

Chinese manufacturer Transsion sells more phones in Africa than any other vendor, with 44.3 percent of the market share in the first quarter of 2021 under their three brands; Tecno, Itel and Infinix. Nearest rival Samsung obtain 22.9 percent in the same quarter. Chinese manufacturers, in general, enjoy a strong presence in the African market, with Transsion, Huawei, OPPO and Xiaomi all making regular appearances in the list of top five producers. This is partially due to the price point at which these manufacturers are able to offer products in Africa, with 42 percent of all smartphones in the continent having a price tag of 100 U.S. dollars or less.

Mobile phones in Africa: opening up financial inclusion

Underbanking is a serious problem in Africa, which has led to exclusion from services such as the transfer of money, non-cash payments, and the management of personal funds beyond the storage of cash. Mobile Money is one solution that is present in Africa, allowing those without a bank account to store, use and transfer funds digitally. 200 million users made 27.55 billion mobile money transactions in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East and Northern Africa during 2020, making up 66.5 percent of all transactions made worldwide. Of the 797 billion U.S. dollars in mobile money transactions made in 2020, 490 billion U.S. dollars of that amount was exchanged in Sub-Saharan Africa.