Prior to TECNO’s arrival into Africa, leading brands Samsung and Apple both dominated the OEM market. At the time, the mobile phone market in Africa was at its tipping point and these global players both controlled a large percentage of mobile phone shipments to the continent. Unfortunately, even though they controlled a large percentage of the market, they didn’t succeed in putting a phone in every hand simply because; their phones were quite expensive and thus could only be afforded by a few people other brands such as Tecno showed up at the party.
For instance, in 2006, Tecno arrived Africa in a quest to provide highly functional budget phones to people on the continent. Their go-to market strategy was simple – target emerging markets and the vast majority who couldn’t afford to buy the seemingly expensive phones in the market. By executing this clear-cut strategy, they made it possible for everyone to be able to afford a phone and partake in the mobile telephony development that was sweeping through the continent at the time.
In November 2007, the company released dual SIM phone the Tecno T780, in response to the social problem of people carrying around several phones at that time due to bad Telecoms infrastructure. This phone and the others that followed after controlled the feature-phone market thereby winning over new customers and even gaining converts from other brands. Just after this success stint, the company began to release very competitive high-end devices targeted at the middle and upper class customers who had more disposable income to purchase smartphones thereby eating farther into the market share of the global brands for this class of customers.
Now, after several product releases for people of every class, Tecno said it has comfortably positioned itself as a force to reckon with when it comes to driving mobile phone brand penetration and market dominance in Africa. The company has successfully used its pragmatic innovation and market knowledge to release great products that are tailored to African market needs year on year.
