Egypt's smartphone phone market has fully recovered from the devastating decline that hit the market in 2017, according to IDC. Its research shows that smartphone shipments to the country increased 16.5 percent in 2019, accelerating from 3.4 percent growth in 2018. That represents a significant turnaround from the 14.4 percent decline seen in 2017, although the global fallout from the Covid-19 outbreak has caused IDC to revise its forecast for the Egyptian market downwards.
Mobile phone shipments to Egypt totalled 14.9 million units in 2019, with smartphones accounting for 72.2 percent of this total and feature phones making up the remainder. Samsung maintained its position as the market's dominant player throughout the year.
Together, Samsung, Oppo, and Xiaomi picked up the slack caused by the decline in Huawei and Honor shipments following US-led sanctions, with Oppo particularly focused on gaining market share in the country. Transsion's smartphone brands (such as Infinix, Tecno, and Itel) saw shipments decline 37.7 percent year on year in 2019 due to the new regulations introduced in Q1 and heightened competition in the price bands they operate in.
The report says there was the sharp increase in shipments of smartphones in 2019 with screen of six inches and above. Such devices accounted for 81.1 percent of all smartphones shipped to Egypt in 2019, up from just 13.5 percent in 2018, thanks to strong demand for recently launched models with larger screen sizes. This change in screen size preferences has also shifted the market to higher price bands; for example, the USD 100–200 price band saw its share increase from 35.6 percent in 2018 to 60.0 percent in 2019, while the USD 100 band lost half of its volume.
IDC expects Egypt's smartphone market to continue growing in 2020, although the market will soften in the first half of the year as a result of the Covid-19 outbreak. IDC forecasts that smartphone shipments to the Egyptian market will increase 3.7 percent in 2020, reaching 11.1 million units.
Source: https://www.telecompaper.com/news/egypt-smartphone-market-accelerates-to-165-growth-in-2019--1328733