There is huge demand for feature phones in the North African mobile phone market, comprising Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco, according to the International Data Corporation (IDC). In the third quarter, phone shipments grew 11.5 percent, said its Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, to 8.2 million units.
The region’s largest mobile phone market, Egypt, saw overall shipments reach 3.7 million units in Q3 2018, with smartphones accounting for 66.1 percent of this total. However, feature phones saw much stronger growth at 23.5 percent year on year, compared with just 2.6 percent for smartphones.
Algeria, the region's second-largest market, saw overall mobile phone shipments of 2.3 million units in Q3 2018, up 25.6 percent year on year. This was caused by the rapid penetration of new local vendors in the market as they looked to take advantage of government regulations restricting mobile phone imports. This regulation exempts semi-knocked devices (SKDs) that are locally assembled. While smartphones represented 52.3 percent of the Algerian market in Q3, shipments of these devices grew by just 3.1 percent year on year compared with 65.3 percent for feature phones.
The Moroccan market remained relatively flat in Q3 with overall mobile shipments totaling 1.6 million units, giving a modest year-on-year growth of 1.3 percent. Smartphones accounted for 65.0 percent of this total, but shipments of these devices declined 4.9 percent year on year versus an increase of 15.8 percent for feature phones.
Tunisia saw overall shipments reach 700,000 units in Q3 2018. Smartphones had a 59.5 percent share and smartphone shipments increased 7.2 percent year on year, while feature phone shipments grew 18.8 percent, despite the recent fluctuations in the Tunisian dinar.
Looking ahead, IDC region-wide growth of 6.2 percent year on year for the North Africa mobile phone market in 2018.
Source: https://www.telecompaper.com/news/north-african-demand-for-feature-phones-surges-in-q3--1272292