South Africa’s best-selling smartphone brands revealed — Samsung has a new rival to worry about

Samsung remained the top-selling smartphone brand in South Africa in 2023 but lost a substantial market share to Chinese manufacturers.

That is according to Counterpoint Research’s Market Monitor of South African smartphone shipments in 2023.

Samsung accounted for 21% of smartphones sold in the country during 2023, down from the 29% market share it posted in 2022.

Counterpoint Research said that the South Korean giant’s total shipments for the year in South Africa declined by 6%.

In stark contrast, the top-selling Chinese smartphone brands recorded massive sales surges.

Former Huawei subbrand Honor led the way, with shipments jumping over 1,000% compared to 2022.

It accounted for 13% of the smartphones sold in South Africa, an astounding increase from the 1% share it held in 2022.

The company not only surged to over half of Samsung’s market share but also leapfrogged value-oriented Chinese rival Xiaomi.

Honor as a standalone brand

Honor was spun off from Huawei in 2020 after the latter was slapped with US trade sanctions.

This blocked Huawei from using Google Mobile Services (GMS) and smartphone hardware that incorporate US technologies released over the past four years.

In its heavily-contested home market, Honor is the best-selling smartphone brand overall.

Honor’s official brand spokesperson in South Africa, Fred Zhou, recently told MyBroadband that, by December 2023, the company had sold roughly 73,000 units of its two main smartphone lines in South Africa.

Zhou estimated that Honor’s smartphone sales grew “more or less” 600% between the start and end of 2023.

Counterpoint said that Honor had a particularly impressive fourth quarter, selling more phones than Samsung to become the top-selling brand overall between October and December 2023.

The analysts said the Honor Magic 4 Lite 5G and Honor X6 were the most significant sales drivers.

Honor launched two new smartphones in South Africa in February 2024 and plans to release its flagship Magic 6 Pro and its latest foldable — the Magic V2 — locally during the second quarter of 2024.

While nowhere near as impressive as Honor’s performance, Xiaomi and Transsion Group’s Tecno were also standout performers — with shipments increasing by 61% and 64%, respectively.

According to Counterpoint, the value-oriented Redmi 10 series and Redmi Note 11 series were the major volume drivers for Xiaomi, while the budget-focused Pova 4 Pro and Spark 8C were credited as the major contributors to Tecno’s high sales.

The biggest loser in the top 5 was Hisense, which saw its market share cut in half due to sales dropping by 33%.

The infographic below from Counterpoint Research shows the market shares of South Africa’s top 5 best-selling smartphone brands.

Counterpoint senior research analyst Yang Wang said South Africa’s smartphone market performed very well considering macroeconomic challenges.

The firm’s analysis showed that the country had its highest-ever year-on-year smartphone shipment growth.

While the most popular models were budget smartphones, Counterpoint said there was a shift towards premium devices, with price tags over $800 (R15,254), in line with global consumer preferences.

“The segment saw an increase of 57% year-on-year, driven mainly by Apple which grew 83% during the year,” Counterpoint said.

Despite this growth, Apple was not in the top 5 best-selling brands, which means it was lumped into the “Others” category.

Lower-end consumers were also moving towards the cheaper mid-range price band of $150-$249 (R2,860—R2,747), with 26% growth in this segment. 

Although most devices only offer LTE connectivity, 5G support is catching up fast.

“5G smartphone shipments grew 31% year-on-year, as 5G device prices continued to decline,” Counterpoint said.

“The expected growth in 5G coverage in the next few years, particularly in city centres, will further boost 5G smartphone penetration in the country.”