Africa is one of the world’s last emerging mobile phone markets, and one Chinese company is making heaps of money there. Transsion, a Shenzhen-based maker of affordable phones posted $743 million in profit last year, up 45.6% year-on-year.
While Transsion is virtually unknown in China, its Tecno, itel and Infinix brands made up 47.4% of Africa’s smartphone market. Its closest competitor, Samsung, trails behind at 21.3%. Transsion’s dominance is even starker in Africa’s still robust feature phone market, where it makes up 76.3%.