Chinese tech companies are dominating in Africa: Tecno, a phonemaker owned by Shenzhen-based Transsion, has become one of the most well regarded brands in Africa thanks to the Chinese company’s commitment to the market, David Pilling writes in the Financial Times. Unlike its Western competitors, Transsion has built cheaper phones specifically for lower-income African economies, providing a longer battery life, dual SIM capacity, and local language options. The company also sees Africa as a potential manufacturing hub, and has opened two factories in Ethiopia. All this has seen Tecno rise to become the fifth most respected brand on the continent, ahead of companies we usually think of as being dominant in the smartphone space, such as Apple and Google.

This is part of a wider trend that is seeing Chinese companies take the lead role in African telecoms. Tech giants Huawei and ZTE are providing the infrastructure and networking capacity almost on their own, while Alibaba’s e-payment platform Alipay is looking to expand on the continent. Transsion’s success is partly due to the reluctance from Western companies to engage with African countries as potential markets. As Pilling notes, there is still a tendency in the West to regard Africa as a charity case. The Chinese, meanwhile, see it as a whole new market.

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