Samsung’s dominance over smartphone sales in South Africa

Samsung smartphones continue to dominate the South African market, with its market share reaching 51.16% in May 2024.

The company attributes its popularity in the country to its wide range of devices, which are designed to cater to the needs of different segments.

In comparison, the next highest market share belongs to Apple, which holds approximately 16% of the South African smartphone market.

This is according to 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.

However, it should be emphasised that this data doesn’t reflect actual sales market share as tracked by organisations like Counterpoint and the International Data Corporation.

Instead, it provides a measurement of the proportion of devices in the market that are also connected to the Internet.

MyBroadband used GlobalStats Statcounter to track mobile vendor market share in South Africa between December 2019 and December 2023.

Samsung held the highest market share in the country at 44.03% in December 2019. It has grown consistently each year, reaching 50.89% in December 2023.

However, Samsung’s popularity isn’t surprising. It sells a wide range of smartphones across nearly every price point.

“We have ensured that our smartphones are designed and built to cater to different needs across all segments, always with our consumer in mind,” Samsung told MyBroadband.

These include entry-level, mid-range, and flagship devices. It also offers customers attractive trade-in deals and extensive local support.

“We have established our Trade-In programme and continuously have offers in the market on the S24 Series, Z Series, and even the A55 5G,” it said.

“This really makes these desirable smartphones so much more accessible and affordable for consumers who want the latest tech whilst being spend-savvy.”

Samsung’s Galaxy A series includes various mid-range and budget devices that balance software support, performance, and affordable pricing.

While Apple also sells a mid-range device, the 2022 iPhone SE, it is relatively expensive compared to other options in the segment.

It also lacks features like a large borderless display and powerful camera sensors.

Huawei also sells smartphones designed for various budgets in South Africa. However, it lost support for Google Mobile Services in May 2019 due to restrictions imposed by the US government.

New Huawei devices are forced to use workarounds to use services like Gmail, YouTube, and Google Maps.

This likely contributed to Huawei’s market share decline in South Africa, particularly considering the rising popularity of brands like Xiaomi, Oppo, and Vivo, which have access to Google services.

Xiaomi has seen its market share grow significantly over the period, more than tripling from 0.81% in December 2019 to 3.58% in December 2023.

According to GlobalStats, Oppo and Vivo had no significant market share in South Africa until December 2022.

Oppo’s market share sat at 2.56% in December 2022 and climbed to 3.37% by December 2023.

Vivo saw much lower growth over the period, climbing from 1.34% in December 2022 to 1.68% in December 2023.

The chart and table below track mobile vendor market shares in South Africa from December 2019 to December 2023. To reduce clutter, we only included data labels in the chart for the top vendors as of December 2023.