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Tanzania: Massive smartphone shift underway in South Africa [Pan African News Agency](Pan African News Agency Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Dar es Salaam, Tanzania (PANA) – South Africa is currently witnessing a massive shift from feature phones to smartphones and this is happening faster than anyone could have imagined just a few months ago, global telecoms business monitor Pyramid Research said Wednesday in its daily update. According to the report, sales figures from the country's largest mobile phone retailer, Pep Stores, reveal a radical transformation in the phone-buying habits of the low- and middle-income segments of South Africa's population. Pep's own numbers, however, were equally startling. In the year to the end of June 2014, it sold not less than 6.7 million pre-paid phones - half of all phones sold on pre-paid deals in South Africa during that period, according to John Edwards, Executive: Cellular at Pep Stores. The biggest surprise in its numbers, however, lurk in the smartphone sales figures. In the half-year to December 2013, 1 percent of prepaid phones sold were smartphones. For the full year, by the end of June 2014, that number had shot up to 7 percent, implying a rise to 13 percent in the first six months of 2014. "But that's not where it ends. In one month alone – March 2014 – the smartphone contribution was at 23 percent, thanks to special offers and new low-cost handsets," the report said. "We're forecasting that number to rise to 30 percent in the last quarter of the year," said Edwards. "It's driven by handset subsidies from the networks, but I suspect that if you took away the subsidies, the volumes wouldn't be significantly lower." Edwards believes that smartphone demand has also been driven by the massive uptake of WhatsApp, the instant messaging app that is now accessible on many feature phones as well as all entry-level smartphones. The obvious devices, sub-R500 Android phones like the MTN Steppa and Huawei Ascend Y220, made a big contribution. However, Pep also made a massive impact by introducing a WhatsApp-specific feature phone: the AG Whutz-Zappa, at a cost of Rands 399 (approximately US$37). -0- PANA AR/VAO 29July2014 (c) 2014 PANAPRESS. All rights reserved. Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (Syndigate.info). |