Transsion Holdings, a China-based smartphone manufacturer, topped the African smartphone market in the fourth quarter of 2021 with a combined unit share of 47.9 percent, according to the latest study by a global research firm released on Wednesday.

The International Data Corporation (IDC) said Transsion, which manufactures Tecno, Infinix, and Itel brands, outpaced Samsung and Xiaomi (including Poco) with respective shares of 19.6 percent and 7.1 percent.

The report shows that Transsion brands also dominated the feature phone market, with a combined unit share of 78 percent, followed by Nokia (8.6 percent) and Alcatel (2 percent).

The report, however, reveals that Africa's overall mobile phone market suffered a year-on-year (YoY) decline of 11.3 percent to a total of 48.6 million units.

The feature phone market was down 14.3 percent to 27.1 million units, while smartphone shipments declined 7.1 percent to 21.5 million units.

Taher Abdel-Hameed, a senior research analyst at IDC said global supply shortages, inflationary pressures, and improved specs and capabilities are driving the average price of smartphones upwards.

According to IDC, Africa's major smartphone markets all experienced a downturn except South Africa, which saw slight year-on-year growth.

It says global supply shortages were the main reason for the declines seen across the region, while Egypt was further hampered by the introduction of new tariffs, amounting to 10 percent, on mobile phone imports.

The low-end price bands with less than 200 U.S. dollars continued to dominate Africa's smartphone market during the period with 81.1 percent share of shipments, although this was down from 86.8 percent in the same period in 2020.

IDC said the midrange price band with between 200 and 400 dollars saw its share increase from 10.1 percent to 14.0 percent over the same period.

IDC expects the African smartphone market to grow 3.8 percent year-on-year in unit terms for 2022 as a whole.

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