Disruption caused by the Iran war is weakening smartphone availability in Africa and making handsets more expensive, shipment tracking data to the continent showed. Rising costs of components, supply chain constraints, and weaker consumer demand that are all partly linked to the Iran war have depressed smartphone sales in much of the continent, resulting in the slowest growth of shipments to Africa in two years, research firm Omdia said.
Transsion, the Chinese firm that is the continent’s top smartphone seller and specializes in the sub-$200 category of devices that dominate African markets, shipped roughly the same volume in this year’s first quarter compared to last. But that market for low-cost phones in Africa is “entering a structurally more challenging phase” with thinner margins this year, Omdia said, due to supply chain costs that, among other factors, stem from a two-year shortage of memory chips that has been made worse by the Middle East crisis.
