Chinese smartphone manufacturer, Xiaomi, is set to enter into Africa.
Reports say that the company is launching a department in Africa to be headed by its current vice president. Hitherto, the company has been selling phones in Africa since 2015 through distributor partnership in South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria.
Competition is increasing globally and even more in China. So there is the need to expand outside China. And seeing that Transsion Holdings has been successful in penetrating the African market such that it surpassed Samsung (21.7%) as the biggest vendor in Africa, accounting for 35.4 percent of smartphone shipments in the second quarter of last year, Africa must be tempting for Xiaomi. Transsion brands include Tecno, Infinix and Itel.
Another contender Xiaomi will have to contend with, is Huawei, the third biggest vendor in Africa with 10.2% market share behind Transsion and Samsung.
Africa is in dire need of cheap phones and Xiaomi has some cheap brands. So one would expect that Xiaomi can gain some market share from the incumbents within a couple of months.
