The battle of smartphones in Uganda

“If there are handsets that move in terms of volumes, it is Techno,” one of the dealers notes in the conversation.
If there is anything in the business of selling phones, it is revealing the units sold. So, getting actual numbers on sales, one will end up with global sales. Explaining the dominance of Samsung, one dealer points out that “they leverage on their global presence and ability to make a phone for almost every segment.”

Adding, “…they know to crowd the market with several phones as they promote their premium smartphone product.”
Currently, Samsung is promoting the premium product the S7 and S7 Edge. The price is about Shs2m for each unit. However, this is not the phone that will be acquired in droves by customers. The dual-sim Samsung phones ranging between Shs300,000 and Shs1m are the most dominant smartphones at the moment. That said, even in the premium category of between Shs1m and Shs2m, Samsung still takes the top spot. That, however, does not make Samsung the most bought phone in the country, according to the dealers.
“When you just do a random walk around Kampala – downtown Kampala, you will see that the shops are not selling Samsung but another phone brand, Techno,” a dealer responds to another in the conversation.

Techno phones are currently some of the low priced on the market ranging from Shs30,000 to just about Shs250,000. That is a price range more accommodative to the general income levels of the majority of Ugandans. Notably, Techno has mostly avoided phone dealers in main street Kampala but preferred locations downtown. At least every several metres in a shopping mall, a Techno shape cannot be missed. “Theirs is about volumes,” a dealer interjects.
“What we are noticing with Huawei is that they want to tap that market between Samsung and Techno,” the dealer adds. This is beginning to show. In some towns around Uganda such as, Hoima and Masindi, phone shops will mostly stock Huawei and Techno phones because of the demand.

Microsoft impresses less
The Ugandan market used to be about one brand – Nokia – about five years ago. Slowly it started losing market share to the likes of Samsung. Nokia’s dominance started at a time MTN Uganda started operations in 1997. During that period, brands such as Ericsson and Siemens were dominant in this market.
However, this started changing and by 2002, the Nokia 3310 became one of the most popular phones in the country. Later, it would be what was often referred to as the Nokia “katorch” because of its torch. The last Nokia phones to dominate the market were the E-series. Lumia series were the last Nokia phones on the market but by then, the market was tilting towards the Android operating system run on most Samsung phones.
With Microsoft acquiring Nokia in 2014, it removed the latter’s logo and now they are known as Windows phones. These Windows phones have been unable to inspire buyers just like Nokia did.

Rise of mobile internet
Much of Uganda’s internet use is being driven by mobile phone handsets that are internet enabled. According to Uganda Communications Commission (UCC), the number of internet users as at the end of June 2015, were estimated at 12 million users. Of these, more than half – about 7 million subscribers – were accessing the internet through mobile handsets. Four years ago, Uganda’s internet penetration was estimated at 5.7 million subscribers. However, mobile internet subscriptions were less than half of 1.5 million subscribers. The mobile internet penetration is as a result of the growth in mobile handsets that have access to social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Whatsapp. According to the Internet, world Statistics of the almost 7 million mobile internet users, 1.5 million of those were just Facebook users.

Sandeep Saihgal, the vice president Huawei - Middle East and Africa, told Daily Monitor on the sidelines of the Huawei P9 launch that manufacturing of handsets has to cater for the rising demand of internet enabled phones.
“We look at the market and get the right handset for it. We work closely with the operators in order to come up with plans for potential buyers of handsets. So for us, it is a combination of getting the right product in the market and then engaging partners on how it should be distributed,” Sandeep notes.

This is done by other players such as Samsung, which has pre-order promotions with MTN Uganda and Airtel Uganda. Africell has been promoting the iDroid mobile phone handsets. If Huawei is to dominate the market, then they are banking on their latest premium handset, the P9 – because of its camera partnership with Leica. Sandeep points out that the mobile phone user is looking for a phone that can take good pictures they can post on their social media sites. However, as most of the dealers noted, pricing and understanding the Ugandan market dynamics will have to play a hand in Huawei’s success if at all.