South Africa’s top-selling smartphone models revealed

Samsung’s Galaxy A series budget and mid-range smartphones dominate device sales at two of South Africa’s major mobile networks and a large general goods retailer.

MyBroadband asked the country’s four biggest mobile networks and several major online and physical stores that offer smartphones for details on their best-selling smartphone brands and models in the first two months of 2023.

MTN, Telkom, Cell C, and Game responded to our queries by the time of publication.

It was evident from their feedback that one brand ruled supreme — Samsung — with eight models being named as best-sellers between the four providers.

One device listed as a top seller from all four was the Samsung Galaxy A23, a budget-oriented smartphone that retails for around R3,999.

The Galaxy A23 packs a 6.6-inch 90Hz display, a quad rear camera headlined by a 50MP shooter, 64GB of built-in storage, and a 5,000mAh battery.

It is also one of the cheapest smartphones in the country that supports 5G connectivity.

Samsung Galaxy A23

Six other Samsung Galaxy A series smartphones were also among the top sellers from at least two of the providers.

These were the Galaxy A03 Core, Galaxy A04, Galaxy A04e, Galaxy A13, Galaxy A33, and Galaxy A53.

Aside from Samsung, the other two top-selling brands featured among all four providers were Huawei and Apple.

This correlates with data from StatCounter GlobalStats on the most popular smartphone brands in South Africa.

Only Huawei had two of the same models in the top sellers of multiple providers — the Nova Y90 and Nova 9SE.

Overall, it had six devices out of all the top sellers across the four providers.

Another Chinese smartphone giant, Oppo, features in the top 5 best-selling smartphone brands from Cell C and Telkom.

“Oppo is doing well and gradually growing their market share in the smartphone market,” said Cell C chief operating officer Andre Ittmann.

The table below shows the best-selling smartphone models in South Africa among three of the country’s major mobile networks and Game during the first two months of 2023.

We kept the orders of the device models and brands as provided, although it should be noted that they are not necessarily listed according to sales volumes. Those in bold were top sellers from at least two providers.

It is no surprise that the best-selling smartphones were primarily from the budget and mid-range segments, given South Africa’s socio-economic realities.

Prices for most devices listed in the table above typically range from R500 to R6,000.

That makes the presence of the Apple iPhone 11 on Game’s list a bit of a surprise.

With a price tag of R10,499 from Game, it is the most expensive option in these lists by a significant margin.

Although technically a flagship smartphone, it is over three years old, which has brought its price to within the mid-range segment.

We also asked the companies what the top-selling devices were in the flagship segment.

Once again, Samsung dominated, with the Galaxy S series being the only range among the top sellers at all three providers.

The Apple 14 Pro series was the only range among the top sellers of at least two providers.

The table below shows the top-selling smartphones at MTN, Telkom, and Game, broken down into the budget, mid-range, and flagship categories.

Cell C did not give a breakdown of its most popular models for each category, but did provide its most popular brands per segment.

Samsung, Huawei, and Oppo dominated its budget and mid-range sales.

When it came to high-end smartphones, it was only Samsung and Huawei smartphones that were top sellers.

Vodacom, Incredible, and Takealot did not answer MyBroadband’s queries about smartphone sales.

Now read: This estate has the highest concentration of iPhones in South Africa