Nigeria, the most populous African country, is leading its counterparts on the continent in smartphones penetration with 41 percent penetration. The country is followed by South Africa with 31 percent and Kenya with 7 percent.
This was disclosed by George Ferreira, vice president and chief operating officer, Samsung Electronics Africa, at the Africa Regional launch for the new Samsung GALAXY Note II and Samsung GALAXY Camera held in Cape Town, South Africa. In line with the company’s strategy to bridge digital divide in the continent, Samsung Electronics has also announced plans to push smartphone penetration in Africa and to further expand its share of the smartphone/devices market across Africa.
Ferreira said Africa is now the second largest and fastest mobile phone market in the world after China, with Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya and Ghana leading the pack in smartphone sales. He explained that usage grew from a base of 90 million in 2005 to a current estimate of 450 million handsets in 2012.
Emmanuel Revmatas, Samsung Electronics West Africa’s mobile business leader for Nigeria, said the advent of new privately-owned submarine cables and their landing on the coast of many East and West African nations, including Nigeria, have significantly reduced cost of internet access and increased the adoption of smartphones on the continent.
“Mobile broadband penetration has increased tremendously over the last few years and all across Africa we are witnessing continued investment in infrastructure by most of the network operators, making it possible for telecom subscribers to take full advantage of world of endless opportunities that smart devices like the Samsung Galaxy Note II offers,” said Revmatas.
He said the Samsung Note II supports 3G and long-term evolution (LTE) technologies and is already available in all accredited Samsung stores across the country. Samsung is a global leader in digital media and digital convergence technologies and currently leads on the global scene as the number one smartphones vendor.
