Transsion shipped 48% of Africa's smartphones in 2025; Kenya's shipments fell 15% in Q2 2026

Transsion, the Chinese maker of Tecno phones, shipped 40.5 million of the 84.4 million smartphones that reached Africa in 2025, a 48 percent share, according to Omdia data cited in a Xinhua feature published on 22 October 2026.

Xinhua, China's state news agency, said Xiaomi, Honor and OPPO ranked third to fifth. Its report, datelined Addis Ababa, said millions of phones are assembled each year at Transsion's factory on the outskirts of the Ethiopian capital.

In Nairobi, Xinhua described staff at Transsion's office testing phone cameras using light boxes, colour calibration cards, Maasai wooden carvings, plaid fabrics, masks and other culturally distinct items. It said the company has customised camera lens components for dark-skinned users and develops photography and video technology tailored to African aesthetics.

Ma Xiaochuan, Transsion's general manager for the East Africa region, said: "Capturing a person's true appearance is not just about algorithms; it is also about dignity."

Xinhua also quoted two Kenyans. Faith Mwikali Munywoki, a content creator, said: "My work relies entirely on this Chinese smartphone." Phillip Mbuthia Ranja, an AI industry analyst in Kenya, said smartphones are "no longer just communication tools" and attributed the rise in Africa's smartphone penetration to Chinese brands. Xinhua wrote that Chinese brands have made mobile devices significantly more affordable and accessible to African customers.

Omdia's quarterly figures, released on 20 August 2026, showed Africa's smartphone shipments falling 7 percent year on year in the second quarter of 2026, the first decline in three years. Shipments in Kenya fell 15 percent, which Omdia put down to rising device prices, particularly in the sub-US$150 segment where demand remained concentrated.

Omdia put the average selling price in Africa at US$202 in the second quarter, up US$41 on a year earlier. At the Central Bank of Kenya's rate of KSh 129.81 to the US dollar on 15 October, that is about KSh 26,200.

Manish Pravinkumar, a principal analyst at Omdia, said in the release: "Vendors can no longer profitably manufacture $75 smartphones." At the same rate, US$75 is about KSh 9,700.

TelecomLead, an industry news site, summarised the Omdia report as saying Transsion, which owns Tecno, Infinix and iTel, remained Africa's largest vendor in the second quarter with 8.3 million phones and a 47 percent share, even though its shipments fell 14 percent year on year. Omdia attributed the fall to Transsion's strong presence in the sub-US$100 segment, where shipments dropped 34 percent across the continent.

Tech-ish, a technology news site, reported on 6 August that Transsion's filing with the Shanghai Stock Exchange on 19 July said the average selling price of its smartphones "rose by a lot", and that it sold fewer smartphones in the first half of 2026 than in the first half of 2025.

The Communications Authority of Kenya (CA) counts phones connected to mobile networks, not sales. Citizen Digital reported on 2 October that the CA counted 52.3 million smartphones connected by the end of June 2026. TechTrends KE, a Kenyan technology news site, gave the CA figure on 19 September as 52.26 million, up 4.2 percent from 50.18 million in March and 65.6 percent of 79.68 million connected mobile devices.

StatCounter, which measures the share of web traffic by device maker rather than phone sales, put Tecno at 16.12 percent in Kenya in September 2026, second to Samsung at 30.13 percent. Infinix was at 8.22 percent, OPPO at 7.49 percent and Xiaomi at 7.44 percent.