After moving from an accounted sales of 90 million mobile phones in 2005 to an estimated 450 million in 2012, Africa has now become the world’s second largest mobile phone market after China.
According to BusinessDay, VP and COO, Samsung electronics Africa, George Ferreira, made this known at the Africa Regional launch for the manufacturer’s new GALAXY Note II, which held in Cape Town, South Africa.
Major brands like Nokia and LG keep shipping millions of cellphones to Africa – a market with high utility, constantly consuming new products. As a recognition of the indisputable importance of the market, manufacturers add functional features like in-built radio and torchlight to products moving to the electricity-starved continent.
In October, Samsung said from January 2013 it would begin integrating African content, including languages on its phones, in an effort to appeal more to the market responsible for about 40 percent of its phone sales.
At the launch, Ferreira added that Nigeria, Africa’s second largest economy, with a reach of 41 percent, has the highest cellphone penetration on the continent. South Africa, the continent’s greatest attractor of foreign investment, followed with a 31 percent penetration, with east Africa’s tech hub, Kenya, trailing on a 7 percent reach.
The arch rival of Apple has laid down plans to leverage on the development and further deepen smartphone penetration on the continent, expanding its share of the increasing market across Africa.
Samsung Electronics West Africa’s mobile business leader for Nigeria, Emmanuel Revmatas, noted that the advent of new privately-owned submarine cables (some of which are optic-fibres), and their landing on the coast of East and West African nations, have significantly reduced the cost of internet service and escalated the acceptance of smartphones.
“Mobile broadband penetration has increased tremendously over the last few years and all across Africa, we are witnessing continued investment in infrastructure by most of the network operators, making it possible for telecom subscribers to take full advantage of world of endless opportunities that smart devices like the Samsung Galaxy Note II offers,” said Revmatas.
