Let me guess, you are probably wondering who the h*ll is Transsion Holdings?
Well, they are the parent company of Infinix, Tecno and Itel. These three smartphone brands produced over 79 million smartphones between them last year (2016) alone. That’s a lot of smartphones, isn’t it?
The saying “a prophet is without honor in his home town” holds true for this company.
Transsion is a Chinesse phone maker based in Shenzhen, but not many Chinese have heard of them, sames goes for the brands under them but they have over 100 million users in Africa. (Infinix, Tecno and Itel users combined).
According to their vice president Arif Chowdhury, their factories have a total production capacity of 300,000 phones per day.
“A decade ago, the sales were less than one million, mainly in India and Bangladesh. Transsion became successful only when it put almost all of its attention on the African market,” said Chowdhury, who is from Bangladesh.
In 2016, Transsion produced 79.91 million phones, about 80 times the volume ten years ago. I’m guessing they now have more smartphones than user, and perhaps that’s the reason we have only seen one set of smartphone launch from Infinix (Infinix S2 and Infinix S2 Pro) so far, compared to three set (Hot 3, Hot 4 and Hot S series) of smartphones from them as of this time last year. Just guessing.
According to technology consultant firm Counterpoint Technology Market Research, Transsion’s market share in 2016 was about 40 percent in Africa, beating bigger competitors such as Samsung, Gionee and Huawei.
Their vice president has likened what Transsion is in Africa to what Nokia whas in China years ago.
“For a company to succeed, we need to find out what exactly people want. African users like selfies, multiple phone card slots, enabling local language, stable music function and longer battery life,” said Chowdhury.
The company was said to have organized 200 technicians to improve camera function and calibrate the exposure to suit darker skin tones.
“We have dual-card, triple and even four-card phones, because there are many phone operators in Africa, and it is expensive to dial between networks,” said the vice president.
The company hope to continue their expansion with recent moves by Tecno to penetrate the Middle East. This include their launch of Tecno Phantom 6 and Phantom 6 Plus in Dubai late last year and their recent launch of some series of smartphones in India.
