Until recently, Transsion Holdings was a relatively unknown company in its home country China. Not until the company applied to be listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange did the media began to accord it some attention. From an obscure start-up, the company has grown to become one of the leading brands in several regions, especially in Africa. In fact, the company is dubbed as Africa’s Mobile Phone King. The company which boasts of four brands, Tecno, Infinix, iTel and Spice is now eyeing further expansion to other markets.
Apart from Transsion, other start-ups who are regarded as China’s second-tier smartphone vendors such as Coosea Group (Koobee) and Elephone are also making efforts to expand their overseas markets. The brands have been enhancing their deployments in overseas markets with high price/performance models to sustain sales growth. This was glaring during the recently held Global Sources Mobile Electronics 2019 Hong Kong. Most of their models on display were bundled with all-screen displays, high-quality cameras and other innovative functionalities.
The Koobee-branded models demonstrated by Coosea are powered by optimized cameras with AI technology, enabling automatic selection under multi-scenario environments and night-shooting applications. Elephone models also had several features such as periscope-style cameras as well as water-drop and punch-hole displays. Apart from that, Elephone is enhancing its presence in Central and South Americas and Africa. The company recently set up flagship stores in Morocco and Niger. Also, Transsion has always promoted its phones with enhanced camera functionalities. In 2018, Transsion Holdings reportedly sold an estimated 124 million mobile phones, capturing 48.7% of Africa’s mobile phone market, and 7% worldwide.
Their efforts to expand their markets may be borne out of the urge to expand their dragnet before first-tier Chinese companies like Xiaomi, OPPO gain ground in the local market. Bigger Chinese brands like OPPO, Xiaomi, Vivo etc, are eyeing the Africa market known for its sheer size and are already opening up branded stores in several African and Middle East countries. Their entry is likely to shrink the market share of the second-tier companies.
(source)
