Boluwatife Akanbi has been trying to replace her phone since last year but hasn’t been able to afford it. “I was looking at the Samsung A series (the brand’s mid-range phones), A30s and above, but they are around N500,000 and up,” she said.
That is far above her budget, and more than seven times the national minimum wage of N70,000. The price of Samsung’s A30s series has jumped by 284.62 percent since 2021, when the A32 retailed for around N130,000.
Like many Nigerians, Akanbi is now forced to choose between upgrading her phone and buying essential items like food. Food inflation crossed 40 percent in early 2024 before easing to 21.26 percent in April 2025, following the National Bureau of Statistics’ rebasing of inflation indices and base year adjustment.
Nigeria’s smartphone sales declined by 7 percent in the first quarter of 2025, according to Canalys, part of the global research firm Omdia. The drop reverses the 63 percent growth recorded in Q4 2023, which had been driven by the introduction of more affordable devices.
Read also: Nigeria’s smartphone market slumps 7% as households focus on food
This slowdown slump follows consistent quarters of slow growth in the smartphone market as the country’s macroeconomic conditions worsened. In Q3 2024, the smartphone market grew by just one percent, weighed down by the naira’s depreciation of over 40 percent in 2024 alone.
“Mobile phones are a necessity, but people now face difficult choices between feeding and buying phones,” said Adeolu Ogunbanjo, president of the National Association of Telecoms Subscribers (NATCOMS).
The unification of Nigeria’s forex market in 2023 triggered record inflation, peaking above 30 percent in 2024. The naira has since fallen from N470/$ in June 2023 to N1,585.76/$ as of May 27, 2025.
“We import our phones, and any increase in the exchange rate impacts prices,” said Ifeanyi Akubue, president of the Phone and Allied Product Dealers Association of Nigeria (PAPDAN).
The high cost of dollars, coupled with double-digit inflation, 23.71 percent in April 2025, has eroded consumer purchasing power. In 2023 alone, inflation wiped out N7.61 trillion in household spending.
These pressures are threatening Nigeria’s digital inclusion efforts. For many, smartphones are the primary gateway to the internet. As of April 2025, mobile internet subscriptions stood at 141.47 million. Still, access remains uneven, only 59 percent of people in urban areas and just 26 percent in rural areas owned smartphones in 2023, according to the GSMA, the global telecoms body.
Karl Toriola, chief executive officer of MTN Nigeria, recently noted that high smartphone prices are a barrier to greater digital inclusion.
This financial squeeze has shifted demand toward entry-level smartphones, especially models from Transsion and Xiaomi. However, much of their sales have also been supported by device financing schemes.
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“Financing schemes like TRANSSION’s Easy Buy and Palmpay have successfully enabled consumers to purchase new smartphones through long-term installment plans, a model now being emulated by other brands,” stated Manish Pravinkumar, senior consultant for Middle East and Africa (MEA) at Canalys.
However, he cautioned that while such financing options have broadened access, they also raise concerns about consumer debt sustainability.
“Declining income is affecting people’s ability to repay,” said Akubue of PAPDAN.
Still, Canalys maintained that Nigeria’s large, youthful, and tech-savvy population offers long-term growth potential for the market, despite its current struggles.
Nigeria’s market trajectory contrasts with that of the broader African continent, which recorded its eighth consecutive quarter of growth. Canalys revealed that smartphone shipments in Africa rose 6 percent year-on-year (y-o-y) in Q1 2025, reaching 19.4 million units.
In North Africa, Egypt led with a 34 percent y-o-y growth in shipments, followed by Algeria with 16 percent. In Sub-Saharan Africa, South Africa posted 14 percent growth, while Kenya grew by just one percent.
“Africa’s smartphone market holds promise in 2025, but persistent economic challenges are keeping growth in check,” Pravinkumar said.
On the brand front, Transsion, maker of Tecno and Infinix, saw a 5 percent y-o-y decline in Q1 2025, breaking a streak of seven consecutive quarters of growth on the continent.
Samsung, with a 21 percent market share in Africa, performed strongly in South Africa and Egypt. While the brand continues to push its premium models, its A-series, including the A06 and A16, accounted for 60 percent of its total shipments, appealing to cost-conscious buyers.
Xiaomi recorded 32 percent growth, driven by strong performance in Egypt and Nigeria. OPPO grew by 17 percent, while HONOR posted a 283 percent surge.
Overall, Canalys projects a 3 percent growth in Africa’s smartphone market in 2025, amid challenges like infrastructure deficits, rising sovereign debt, and macroeconomic instability.
