In Africa, Apple isn’t king, neither is Samsung or any of the other big names in the mobile industry. The African mobile phone market is controlled by Transsion Holdings, owners of Tecno, Infinix, and Itel phone brands. Now, Xiaomi has announced the establishment of an African Regional Department to challenge the Shenzhen-based Transsion.
According to a market research analysis for the first quarter of 2018, Samsung held the largest market share but Transsion’s Tecno and Itel brands had the second and third largest market share while its Infinix brand came in at 5th place just behind Huawei. Collectively, that makes Transsion Holdings the leader of the smartphone market.
Xiaomi wants some of that market share and this isn’t surprising. The brand has been on an expansion streak in the last 18 months. It has opened up shop in new countries and regions and now it wants to come to Africa.
This isn’t actually Xiaomi’s first foray into the African market. A few years ago, it launched a few phones in Nigeria but was barred by a court injunction from selling any more phones and products. The injunction which was obtained by a South African phone company called Mi-Fone prevented Xiaomi from selling any phone or product with the trade name “Mi”. Xiaomi later obtained a pass that allowed it to sell its products in Nigeria.
However, only a few Xiaomi phones have been sold since then and actually by retail partners. Last year, the Redmi Note 5A and Redmi Note 5 were sold by e-Commerce store, Jumia. The Redmi 6A is also currently available on the retail site. Apart from these devices, there isn’t really an official presence in the country. There is also no after-sales service. Nevertheless, Xiaomi products are quite popular as a lot of people import them from outside the continent.
Now that Xiaomi has established an African Regional Department, things should be much different. We should see devices get official launches in different countries and there should be official after-sales support.
According to the official memo, Xiaomi’s African Regional Department will be headed by Wang Lingming and he will report to Wang Xiang.
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Xiaomi also announced changes in other regions. Indonesia, South Asia, and Southeast Asia will now be under the newly formed Southeast Asia Region headed by Shi Yan. There is also a new head for Russia and CIS regional departments, and the patent department has now been merged with the legal department.
(Via)
