Samsung commands over half of South Africa’s smartphone market at 51.5% as of July 2025

Key Takeaways

Samsung controls more than half of the South African smartphone market, more than all other brands combined.
Apple holds 17.61%, less than half of Samsung’s share, but remains the clear premium alternative.
Despite global challenges, Huawei captures 10.03%, placing third in the market.
Honor, Xiaomi, and Oppo collectively hold approximately 11.6%, while smaller brands like Tecno, Itel, and Nokia struggle below 2% each.

South Africa’s smartphone market is overwhelmingly dominated by Samsung, which captures more than 1 in every 2 devices in use (51.54%). Apple trails far behind with 17.61%, reflecting its strong appeal among higher-income consumers but limited overall penetration. Huawei, despite facing global restrictions, maintains a solid 10.03% share, showing resilience and brand loyalty in the market.

Other players like Honor (4.72%), Xiaomi (3.8%), and Oppo (3.09%) are gaining ground but remain relatively niche. Meanwhile, budget brands such as Tecno (1.15%) and Itel (0.77%), which perform well elsewhere in Africa, have minimal presence in South Africa, indicating a market tilted more towards premium and mid-range smartphones than ultra-low-cost options.

Source:

StatCounter Global Stat

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Period:

July 2025

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Samsung’s mobile vendor share is particularly strong in Southern Africa

Samsung exceeds 50% share in 4 African countries, led by Somalia at 66.9%.
Its share exceeds 40% in 16 countries, including Ethiopia, South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe.
Southern Africa shows particularly high Samsung usage, with all five UN M49 countries above 44%.
Samsung’s share is much lower in major markets, including Nigeria (16.3%), Egypt (22.9%) and Ghana (24.7%).
Samsung holds a 32.0% share across Africa, based on mobile web traffic rather than device sales.

Apple's mobile vendor share exceeds 25% in seven African countries, led by Seychelles at 37.6%

Apple exceeds 25% share in 7 African countries, led by Seychelles at 37.6%.
Cape Verde and Mauritania follow, at 36.5% and 33.8%, respectively.
South Africa trails just below 25%, with a 24.8% share.
Nigeria’s 17.9% share is close to Africa’s 18.7% average, despite its market size.
These figures measure web traffic, not device sales or installed smartphone base.

iPhone usage in Africa is just 15%, far below North America’s 60% usage

North America leads globally with 60.2% iPhone usage, making it the largest iPhone market.
Oceania follows at 58.9%, showing similar consumer preferences to North America.
Africa has the lowest iPhone share (14.7%), highlighting a significant adoption gap.
Nigeria aligns with the continental trend at 14.1%, reinforcing that the gap is structural, not country-specific.

Samsung leads Ghana’s smartphone market with 26.4% share, followed by Tecno (17.7%) and Apple (17.4%)

Samsung dominates with 26.42% of Ghana’s smartphone market, making it the clear leader.
Tecno (17.7%) and Apple (17.4%) are in a tight race for second place, separated by just 0.3 percentage points.
Infinix (10.5%) and Itel (5.2%) highlight the strong presence of Transsion Holdings brands in Ghana.
Global giants like Huawei (6.8%) and Xiaomi (2.5%) lag behind, showing Ghana’s preference for budget-friendly African-focused brands.

The total global monthly cellular data usage across all mobile app categories reached 146.92 EB in January 2025

Video apps consumed 75.86% of the total global mobile data, making them by far the largest data users.
Social networking apps accounted for 7.84% of the total data usage, translating to 11.52 exabytes.
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Audio apps like streaming music services accounted for 1.20% of the total mobile data usage.
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The number of smartphone handsets globally has increased by 4.43B in the last 10 years

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Since 2020, annual growth has been under 6%.
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