Most popular smartphone brands in South Africa

Samsung is the most popular smartphone manufacturer in South Africa, according to the latest available data from GlobalStats Statcounter. 

The data analytics company uses over five billion monthly page views of around 1.5 million websites to determine the leading brands and vendors in various industries and regions.

It should be emphasised that this data does not reflect actual sales market share, which is tracked by organisations like Counterpoint and the International Data Corporation.

Statcounter’s latest data shows that Samsung-related websites and online platforms accumulated 50.59% of views in the mobile vendor segment in South Africa in March 2024.

Apple took the second place with 16.04% of views in the segment, while Huawei was the third-most popular mobile vendor in South Africa in March 2024, with a share of 14.09%.

Samsung’s dominance in the space isn’t surprising.

The company sells a wide range of smartphones across the three primary pricing segments — entry-level, mid-range, and flagship — and provides attractive trade-in deals with extensive local customer support.

Under the Galaxy A Series, it offers mid-range and budget smartphones that provide a good balance of performance, affordability, and software support.

On the other hand, Apple sells just one mid-range smartphone — the iPhone SE — which is relatively expensive for the segment and lacks features like a large display and a powerful camera setup.

Huawei also sells budget and mid-range devices in South Africa. However, its lack of Google support requires workaround to install many of the most popular apps available on the Google Play Store.

The chart below compares South Africa’s mobile vendor popularity based on data from GlobalStats, as of March 2024.

Mobile vendor popularity in South Africa

Samsung’s dominance in South Africa has grown 6.65 percentage points since September 2019, when its market share sat at just under 44%.

Apple’s market share also grew over the four-and-a-half years, from 14.65% in September 2019 to 16.04% in March 2024 — a jump of 1.39 percentage points.

Meanwhile, Huawei’s South African market share has crashed during this period.

It sat at 25.82% in September 2019 and reached a peak of 29.24% in September 2020. However, its market share currently sits at 14.09% — less than half of its peak.

This represents a market share decline of 15.15 percentage points, the biggest loss of which came between March 2021 and September 2021, when Huawei lost 4.06 percentage points of its South African market share in six months.

Notable climbers in the South African smartphone market over the same period are Xiaomi and Oppo.

Xiaomi’s popularity grew from 0.77% in September 2019 to 3.7%% in March 2024.

However, Oppo’s climb is slightly more impressive. Statcounter GlobalStats’ data shows that Oppo’s was nearly a complete unknown until September 2021.

It has since climbed to hold 3.38% of views in South Africa.

Honor also made a remarkable entrance to the market. Statcounter GlobalStats had no market share data for the manufacturer until September 2023, when it held 0.79% of the local market.

Its share of views has more than doubled in six months to 1.83% in March 2024.

According to Counterpoint Research, its sales market share exploded, growing from 1% in 2022 to 13% in 2023

The table below compares smartphone vendor online views popularity in South Africa from September 2019 to March 2024.