Microsoft plans to take on the South African smartphone operating system market as its number one player as mobile penetration accelerates on the continent.
According to Gustavo Fuchs, Windows Phone business manager in Africa and Middle East, Microsoft is aiming to be the leading device operator in South Africa by 2016, with its next targets being Nigeria and Kenya.
Recently established partnerships with Nokia and HTC are aimed at releasing an array of models across different price ranges.
“With a low-smartphone-penetration market, Windows Phone has a bigger chance to be the first smartphone for users,” Fuchs told Bloomberg in an interview.
He added: “The smartphone snowball effect has started.”
BlackBerry had around 51 per cent of the South African market share in 2012. Android is at around 34 per cent.
Microsoft has jumped from two per cent in 2011 to around 10 per cent now.
Microsoft deems Kenya and Nigeria as next markets to win over.
“Kenya is important as a hub, not a single market,” Fuchs said.
Nigeria’s subscribers were recorded as 113 million, while Kenya had a mobile subscriber base of 31.2 million by the end of 2012.
Africa is the premium choice of market to tap into because of its rapid handset-owning population growth of an estimated 85 per cent by 2015, A.T Kearney, a Washington-based consulting firm stated.
In 2012, a 73 per cent growth rate was recorded, hitting the 900 million user mark.
Other continents such as Europe, North America and Asia have reached a plateau in its growth with more than 100 per cent device ownership.
