Jumia by the Numbers: Smartphones Account for 45% of All Items Sold on Jumia, Infinix Top Brand in 2015

Infinix Kenya Managing Director Carter Tang speaks during the event to mark the start of the Jumia Mobile Week 2016 where Jumia also launched its white paper on mobile device trends in Africa.

Driven by increased demand for smartphone brands originating from China but with a keen African focus, Jumia Kenya has seen sales of smartphones skyrocket by 244% in the period between 2014 and the end of 2015. As a result, 45% of all purchases made on the site in Kenya are smartphones.

The hyper growth of smartphone sales shows the interest Kenyans have in them as more and more either upgrade from feature phones or replace older smartphones. The result is that Jumia Kenya is very bullish about its smartphone sales prospects this year. Jumia expects a three-times increase in smartphone sales in 2016.

According to the African Mobile Trends 2016 report released by Jumia earlier today, there were 3.6 million smartphones sold in the Kenyan market in 2015.

‘There were 1.7 billion unique mobile subscribers on a global scale at the end of 2015. This means that almost 70% of the world’s population was communicating through a mobile phone in 2015.’

Riding on top of the popularity of smartphones by buyers on Jumia is Chinese smartphone brand Infinix. Infinix is the best-selling smartphone brand on Jumia in Kenya, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Egypt and Morocco. Even then, Samsung still managed to top it in terms of general market share in the five countries by capitalizing on its well established offline retail channels.

However, according to the report, Samsung’s dominant position in key mobile markets on the continent is being threatened by the aggression of Chinese smartphone brands like Huawei, Infinix, Tecno, X-tigi, Itel and others like Wiko. This is mainly because those brands have set themselves apart as offering flashy devices with desirable specifications at rock-bottom prices. Their increased presence in the market resulted in the average smartphone cost dropping to as low as $85 from a high of $200 in Kenya.

Here is a quick look at some of the interesting statistics contained in the white paper:

• Kenya is the 21^st most connected (via mobile internet) country worldwide.
• Jumia is the third most visited website in Kenya.
• 55% of Kenyan users visiting the Jumia website did so from their mobile devices. 40% of those were from rural Kenya hence underscoring the fact that e-commerce is not a preserve of the urbanites.
• Kenya has 35.5 million internet users. Of those, 23.7 million are mobile phone users, a number that is attributed to the affordable cost of mobile data bundles.
• Use cases of mobile devices by Kenyan users are also interesting as can be seen in the following graphic: