Chinese manufacturer Transson accounts for 30% of African phone sales

"No matter how many phones you sell, Yu Weiguo has learned, it’s tough to keep to a schedule when the government declares martial law. During his eight years in Ethiopia, Yu has helped turn little-known Transsion Holdings, owner of the sleepy Chinese brand Tecno Mobile, into Africa’s leading mobile device maker. Having sold at least 200 million phones on the continent, he picked the outskirts of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital, as the site for a 280,000-square-foot factory. It was supposed to be pumping out as many as 2 million phones a month by July, but things aren’t working out as planned.
Ethiopia’s ruling coalition declared a state of emergency in mid-February after the surprise resignation of Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn destabilized the rest of the autocratic regime. For Transsion, the fallout has been a lesson in risk. The company profits from China’s checkbook diplomacy in Africa but now faces the downside: public outcry against worsening inequality and repression. “There are many things that can’t be controlled in Africa,” Yu says. “Sometimes your plans don’t work.”
To say Transsion and its phones are little-known outside Africa is an understatement. Tecno has never cracked the top-10 smartphone brands in China and doesn’t sell in the U.S. or Europe. Yet its parent accounts for 30 percent of African phone sales, compared with 22 percent for second-place Samsung, according to researcher Canalys. Reclusive founder Zhu Zhaojiang controls the private company via a string of related backers and funds, as well as some government-backed investment. Zhu, 44, has said he plans to go public at some point through a reverse merger with Shimge Pump Industry Group, a Chinese manufacturer of stainless steel pumps."

Source:  Bloomberg, 28th March 2018

47% of phones sold in Q1 2015 in Africa were smartphones

"Regional smartphone shipments will total 155m units in 2015 after increasing by 66% year on year during the first quarter, according to the technology research and consulting firm’s Q1 2015 Mobile Phone Tracker report. During the quarter, 47% of cellphones sold during the first quarter in Africa were smartphones. Feature-phone sales on the continent slumped by 20% year on year, according to IDC.
“The growth in smartphones in the Middle East and Africa region is being spurred on by Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS, with the two platforms accounting for over 95% of the smartphones shipped in the first quarter of 2015,” the company said. “Shipments of devices featuring these operating systems increased by a combined 67% year on year.”
In Africa, Android has 89% market share in smartphones, with Apple a distant second at 7%. Android is particularly dominant in the low- to mid-priced bands, while Apple is found in the US$450-plus category.
“The strong growth in the region’s smartphone market is largely being driven by the emergence of low-priced devices that are primarily powered by Android,” IDC said. “Indeed, almost half of all the smartphones shipped across Africa (45,1%) in the first quarter of 2015 were priced below $100, while almost 75% fell under $200.”
Nigeria accounted for 14% of all smartphone shipments across Africa during the first quarter, while South Africa was responsible for 12%.
Samsung, Tecno and Apple were the leading smartphone vendors in Africa during the quarter, with Huawei being ousted from the top three. The three leading vendors accounted for a combined 55% share of Africa’s smartphone shipments in the first quarter."
Source:  Data from IDC, reported by TechCentral, 12th July 2015

Active bank accounts per 1,000 people in Africa

Source:  IMF, via Gates Notes, January 2015

Impact of the mobile internet in Africa vs UK

Impact of the mobile internet in Africa vs UK from On Device Research

Facebook use in Africa

"The Meteoric Growth of Social Media: Over five years Facebook has grown from practically no users in Sub-Saharan Africa to become the most widely used social media platform. In the four countries where face-to-face surveys were carried out for this research, between 14% (Tanzania) and 27% (Ghana) of all respondents were using it, a significant number on basic phones using SMS. Facebook is the dominant platform although there are interesting local variations. All forms of social media serve as a source of news and information alongside more traditional media. People “like” news media  (newspapers, radio and TV stations) on Facebook to get information and receive similar “news” or “research” alerts from friends and colleagues."
Source:  Data from Balancing Act, reported by them on 19th September 2014
Note - Much more data in the full article
Reports:
The Sub Saharan Media Landscape
Feature Phone User Survey
Face to Face Survey - Full Results
Qualitative Research

4 of the 10 most-used smartphones in South Africa are Blackberries

"The most used smartphones in South Africa are the BlackBerry 8520 Curve, the BlackBerry 9320 Curve, and the BlackBerry 9300 Curve. This is according to Vodacom’s data about the number of active devices on its network.
The data further revealed that the top 10 most used smartphones on the Vodacom network included four BlackBerry devices, three Samsung phones, two Nokias, and an iPhone.
While there is a great deal of hype around high-end devices like the iPhone and Samsung Galaxy range, the more affordable BlackBerry 8520 is the smartphone which many South Africans use."

Source:  MyBroadband, 16th September 2014

Facebook has over 100M MAUs in Africa

"Facebook just keeps on growing. The number of people accessing its social network each month has reached 100 million in Africa, further highlighting the opportunity for expansion through emerging markets.
According to Facebook, more than 80 percent of its monthly active users in Africa are now accessing the platform from a mobile device. That’s a high attachment rate for feature phones, smartphones and tablets, suggesting usage on laptops and desktop PCs is slowly being left in the dust."

Source:  The Next Web, 8th September 2014

Global mobile ad spend nearly doubled to $19.3bn in 2013

"IAB Europe, the U.S. IAB Mobile Marketing Center of Excellence and IHS Technology revealed today their global figures for mobile advertising revenue which soared a massive 92% to €14.6bn ($19.3bn) in 2013 from €7.6bn ($10.1bn) in 2012, confirming the adoption of mobile as an essential element of the marketer’s toolkit.
Mobile display shows the highest growth at 123.4% and mobile search, up 92.1%, flourishes mainly driven by smartphone penetration as affordable data plans fuel location-based search-on-the-go. Messaging, itself up 19.4%, might not be sharing as much robust growth due to migration from operator-owned messaging services (e.g. SMS and MMS) to alternative platforms. Successful messaging innovation, particularly in Asia, reinforces the commonly held industry belief that mobile players need to be ahead of the curve.
Search remains the dominant segment representing 48.9% of the total global mobile advertising revenue in 2013 at €7.1bn ($9.5bn), while display approaches parity with a 41.5% share at €6bn ($8bn), and messaging takes a 9.6% share at €1.4bn ($1.9bn).
The share by region of the global figure of €14.6m ($19.3m) for 2013 is:
• North America: 41.9% (€6,099m / $8,100m)
• Asia-Pacific: 38.9% (€5,666m / $7,525m)
• Europe: 17.3% (€2,519m / $3,346m)
• Middle East & Africa: 1.2% (€170m / $225m)
• Latin America: 0.7% (€109m / $144m)
2013: Global mobile advertising revenue: share by region
Growth year-over-year was strong across the board, led by Latin America, which saw a massive 215% leap over the 2012 figures. North America and Europe also saw major increases
• Latin America – 215%
• North America – 122%
• Europe – 90%
• Asia-Pacific – 69%
• Middle-East and Africa – 45%"
Source:  Press release from IAB Europe, 13th August 2014

Digital Landscape - MENA & Turkey

Social, Digital & Mobile in The Middle East, North Africa & Turkey from We Are Social Singapore

66% of Facebook mobile users in India access via a feature phone

"When you think of how people access the Internet, you might glance at your smartphone or computer and imagine everyone around the world using similar devices. However, roughly 7 out of every 10 people in the world, many in high-growth countries like India, Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, South Africa and Nigeria, use far simpler devices, like feature phones, to access the Internet.1
The rate of people using only mobile devices to access the Internet is skyrocketing, especially in high-growth countries. More than one billion people access Facebook on mobile every month and many do so across multiple mobile devices. In many countries, a majority of those people experience Facebook on a feature phone: in India 66%, in Indonesia 71% and in South Africa 68%."
Source:  Internal data from Facebook, cited in a blog post, 2nd July 2014

Adoption of the M-Pesa mobile payment technology has improved the lives of women in Kenya

"For White, the adoption of M-Pesa has brought significant positive changes for the women in these communities.
Firstly, many women now have the ability to save their money in a safe place and build up resources for costly activities and purchases such as helping their families and, most importantly, sending their children to school. Women stated that they were much less likely to spend their money when they saved it in M-Pesa rather than in their homes. Also, in the past, men often used their wives’ money to buy alcohol or other personal items, leaving the women with insufficient funds to process fish. With the women’s money saved in M-Pesa, their husbands no longer have easy access to it.
The women’s transportation expenses have drastically gone down too. This includes the direct costs of transport and the money the women save since they would otherwise have to stop working for a period of time to physically transport their money themselves. Women use their extra money and time to expand their businesses and profits, most often by processing more fish to sell or, for the most audacious, constructing their own fishing boats.
White emphasises the case of a college-educated women, very involved in her community. Using M-Pesa allowed this woman to have more free time to attend different meetings and trainings, from which she gained knowledge on issues like maternal health and business strategies to share with her community. 81% of White’s interviewees said that the use of M-Pesa makes women more independent; they no longer have to rely on others for money."

Source:  Open Democracy, 31st March 2014

Mobile subscriptions & growth by region Q1 2013

Click to enlarge

Source:  Ericsson Mobility Report, June 2013

New product innovation is shifting from developed to emerging markets

"We can see this recent shift take form if we focus on new product innovation between 2008 and 2012. In 2008, the world’s 26 developed market countries, which include the U.S., Great Britain, France, Germany and Canada, generated 75 percent of global new product innovation, while the 47 emerging markets launched the remaining 25 percent.
In 2012, however, emerging market countries like China, Brazil, India and Mexico stepped up their innovation efforts and entered the list of top 10 innovative markets. Overall, the emerging markets contributed 31 percent of the world’s new product innovation in 2012, while innovation in developed markets dropped to 69 percent."

Source:  Nielsen Newswire, 23rd April 2013

There are over 2 billion people with a phone but no internet connection

"Six billion cell phone subscriptions are spread across five billion of the earth’s seven billion people, says Suneet Tuli, CEO of Datawind, maker of the world’s cheapest tablet computer. Yet only two billion people are connected to the internet, which means three billion people have everything they need to connect to the internet—except a suitable device.
“Are they lacking electricity?” asks Tuli. “Of course not–if you’ve got a cell phone, you’ve got some way of charging it. Are they lacking networks? No. If you’ve got a cell phone, you’ve got some way of being connected to it. So what is really left? What is left is affordability. A computer costs three or four hundred bucks, and a cell phone costs thirty or forty bucks. But what happens if a basic computing device that’s reasonably usable gets down to that price point?”"
Source:  Quartz.com, 29th November 2012

Note - I think the recent Ericsson mobile numbers are more reliable, so I've used them in the heading; the idea remains the same

4.3 billion people have 6.4 billion mobile phone subscriptions

"Telecommunications giant Ericson has released a massive report on the state of the mobile world. And clearly, unless you live in the almost-fully-penetrated European and North American markets, everything is up and to the right.
China, the rest of Asia, and Africa together accounted for 75 percent of new mobile subscriptions in the third quarter of 2012, with 38 million in China, 31 million in the rest of Asia, and 25 million in Africa. That contrasts rather sharply with only one million new subscriptions in western Europe and two million in North America.
With 6.4 billion global cellular subscriptions and a world population just shy of seven billion, it would seem that almost everyone has a mobile phone or other mobile device connected to the internet. However, Ericsson, says, those 6.4 billion subscriptions are spread over only 4.3 billion people, meaning that many people have more than one plan … for example, a phone and a tablet, both with a cellular connection.
Which leads to a penetration percentage of well over 100 percent in some areas:
Mobile subscriptions penetration globally
40 percent of all phones sold in the third quarter, Ericsson says, were smartphones, but only 15 percent of the global installed base of phones is smartphones … so there is still a long runway for growth. In fact Ericsson is predicting smartphone subscriptions alone will reach 3.3 billion in 2018."

Source:  VentureBeat, 23rd November 2012

Full report is here

Facebook user penetration by region

Click to enlarge

Source:  Data from Social Bakers, reported by BBC News, 4th October 2012

An average of 117 searches per searcher were made in June 2012

"Evaluating search growth centers around two primary metrics:
Number of Searchers
Total Searches Conducted
From these numbers, we can then derive a variety of consumption metrics such as Searches per Searcher and Searcher Conversion. For this analysis, I used comScore qSearch, which is based on a two million desktop/PC based searcher panel covering more than 170 countries.
In June 2012, 1.47 billion searchers conducted 173 billion searches (with year-over-year increases of 10% and 12%, respectively), making for 117 searches for every searcher on the planet. If you were to add in the number of searches now performed on mobile devices and tablets, the numbers would be even more staggering. Social Media may get most of the news clippings lately, but search activity is still one of the most popular activities on the Internet.
Search is a relatively mature online activity that will not continue to experience double digit growth in new searchers forever, so the ongoing growth opportunity would appear to be in the number of searches each person conducts. But 117 searches per searcher worldwide already seems like a lot, doesn’t it? However, when you break this number down by different regions and countries, you begin to get a better sense of where the search growth will come from in succeeding years.
While Europe and Asia Pac have the highest number of searchers and generate the highest overall volume of search queries, the search utilization by region shows a different story with Latin America taking the gold:
Latin America: 162
Europe: 135
North America: 129
Asia Pacific: 97
Middle East-Africa: 92"

Source:  Press release from comScore, 5th September 2012

Note - Desktop searches only

An estimated 475m people in sub-Saharan Africa have no access to bank accounts

"The surprising fact is Africa’s poor represent a vast reserve of untapped capital waiting to be channeled into consumer and small-businesses loans, and for infrastructure development. By some estimates, 95% of the nearly 500 million adults in sub-Saharan Africa earning less than $10 a day have no access to bank accounts. If they did, the formal banking system could get its hands on as much as $59 billion in new deposits."

Source:  Time, 16th August 2012

Mobile Search and the Olympic Games

Google have looked at some stats across the world, combining tablet and mobile to create this chart.

Click to enlarge

Source:  Google Mobile blog, 6th August 2012
Note - lots more background at the original link

Mobile ad spend by region and format, 2011

Click to enlarge

Source:  Data from the IAB and HIS Screen Digest, reported by ClickZ, 6th June 2012