Xiaomi is going to expand in Africa

Chinese companies like Huawei and Xiaomi are taking their battle to Africa

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Tecno, owned by Shenzhen company Transsion, is one of the most popular smartphone brands in Africa. (Picture: Transsion)

Published: 7:58pm, 23 Jan 2019Updated: 8:51am, 20 Sep 2019

This article originally appeared on ABACUS

People in China are buying fewer smartphones. So how can Chinese smartphone makers keep growing? By looking to a whole new continent: Africa.

Xiaomi says it's launching a department in Africa headed by its current vice president. While the company has been selling phones in Africa since 2015 through local partnerships, this branch marks its official venture into the area.

How Xiaomi forged a unique path

While China's smartphone market might be saturated and competition fierce, interest in smartphones is growing across African countries, some of which are still dominated by feature phones.

Another reason for Xiaomi to be optimistic: Where Western markets tend to sell phones via carriers, IDC's Simon Baker tell us that in Africa most phones are sold on the open market.

But Xiaomi aren't the first Chinese company to think of heading there. Chinese smartphone makers are already big across the continent, thanks to a brand you probably haven't heard of: Transsion. The Shenzhen-based company doesn't sell smartphones on its home turf, but surpassed Samsung as the biggest vendor in Africa, accounting for 35.4% of smartphone shipments in the second quarter of last year.