While Africa’s overall mobile phone market recovered during the last quarter of 2020, registering growth of 4.6% for the period, the market experienced a 10% decline for the year, mostly owing to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

New data from global technology research and consulting services firm International Data Corporation (IDC) shows that feature phone shipments to the region grew 7.6% in the fourth quarter of 2020, while smartphone shipments increased 0.7% over the same period.

Year-on-year, smartphone shipments were down 5.5% on the corresponding quarter of 2019, while feature phone shipments decreased 8%.

According to the latest Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, South Africa recorded the region’s largest share of quarterly growth, with a 16.3% increase in smartphone shipments destined for this country, followed by Nigeria, with 12.1% quarter-on-quarter growth. Smartphone shipment growth in Egypt was slower at just 1.8%.

“South Africa imposed a total market lockdown in the first and second quarters of 2020, causing a build-up of pent-up demand that led to high growth rates in the third and fourth quarters of 2020,” explains IDC research analyst George Mbuthia.

“In Nigeria, Chinese vendors were keen on pushing high volumes of units during the fourth quarter of 2020, when the dollar rate was stable. Egypt, on the other hand, experienced a slow growth rate, owing to high sell-in during the third quarter.”

The tracker shows that the average selling price of smartphones increased 5.6% during the fourth quarter, as vendors launched new models in the midrange and high-end price bands.

Shipments of devices from the lowest price band, under $80, declined 14.5% in the fourth quarter of 2020, while the $200 to $300 range experienced the highest growth, with shipments of these devices increasing 43.7%.

During the fourth quarter of 2020, fourth-generation (4G) devices accounted for 83.9% of the smartphones shipped to the African market, while third-generation devices accounted for a 15.4% share and fifth- generation (5G) devices for 0.7%.

“The infrastructure investment required on the telecommunications side to drive 5G adoption is understandably lacking at the moment, since the primary desire of telecommunications companies is to use their existing 4G capacity,” says Mbuthia.

“On the device side, most vendors are now starting to launch their 5G models in the market, and the cost of 5G devices is expected to decline significantly over the medium term, leading to much faster growth for 5G handsets,” he continues.

IDC expects smartphone shipments into Africa to grow 2.9% in 2021.

While the first half of the year is likely to be slower as vendors face component shortages, a recovery is expected to start from the second half of 2021.

“With the expansion of vaccination programmes and a subsequent slowdown in the spread of the Covid-19, markets across the region are expected to return to normal in the second half of 2021, with retail channels performing better and buying power starting to improve,” says IDC senior research manager Ramazan Yavuz.

Meanwhile, across the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region, the smartphone market recorded its weakest performance in six years during 2020, owing to the Covid-19 crisis.

The IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker shows that the EMEA market volume contracted 4.2% in units year-on-year to 345.2-million, with the market’s value declining 4.6% year-on-year to about $110-billion.

In Europe, the market recorded a 4.9% slump year-on-year in unit terms, falling to 195.2-million and losing 3% in value to $82.4-million.