Samsung dominates regional handsets despite falling share

Smartphone shipments register 83% year-on-year growth in Mideast and Africa

Increased availability of cheaper mobile phones and dual-SIM devices in the Middle East and Africa has fuelled a year-on-year growth of 19.6 per cent in volume in 2014.

Smartphones accounted for 41.9 per cent of all mobile handset shipments into the region, up from 27 per cent in 2013, with the smartphone shipments registering 83 per cent year-on-year growth.

Although Samsung maintained its number-one position in the region, its smartphone share fell from 51.5 per cent in 2013 to 43.8 per cent for 2014.

Huawei and Apple followed in second and third place with shares of 8.9 per cent and 7.8 per cent, respectively.

“Many new vendors have been eager to get into the region’s burgeoning smartphone Apple to Samsung specifically for the larger screen sizes have now started to switch back.

Meanwhile, Huawei has experienced a wave of growth in the mid to low-end segment.

The vendor has struck the “right balance” between quality and price, particularly in some of the region’s more emerging markets where it is even killing the local competition.

She said that basic phones have been hit hard by the increased availability of more affordable smartphones, with shipments down 4.5 per cent year on year in 2014.

Smartphones priced under $100 captured 20 per cent share of the market, up from just five per cent in 2013.

Market share of smartphones in the $100 to $200 price bracket increased eight percentage points in just one quarter, from 25 per cent in third quarter to 33 per cent in the fourth quarter of last year. But smartphones priced in the higher-end $250 to $500 bracket have seen their share of the overall market fall from 23 per cent in the third quarter to 18 per cent in the fourth quarter of last year.