Nigerian phone shipments absolutely popped off with a 29 percent jump after the naira stopped tanking and making everything expensive. The country basically carried Africa out of a five-quarter slump by flooding the market with cheap handsets under a hundred bucks, and the budget segment shot up 57 percent because brands like TECNO and Infinix went hard on entry-level devices.
The wild part is that premium phones over 500 dollars also grew 52 percent, which shows wealthy Nigerians kept buying iPhones and Samsungs while everyone else upgraded from feature phones. Currency stability made vendors confident enough to import aggressively, and the whole continent ended up growing 24 percent while the Middle East is apparently heading for a one percent crawl because component costs are getting messy.
The wild part is that premium phones over 500 dollars also grew 52 percent, which shows wealthy Nigerians kept buying iPhones and Samsungs while everyone else upgraded from feature phones. Currency stability made vendors confident enough to import aggressively, and the whole continent ended up growing 24 percent while the Middle East is apparently heading for a one percent crawl because component costs are getting messy.
