Xiaomi vs Oppo vs Honor — the fight for Huawei’s spot in South Africa

Chinese manufacturers Honor, Oppo, and Xiaomi have started battling it out to fill a Huawei-sized hole in the flagship smartphone market in South Africa.

The three companies officially launched some of their high-end smartphone models locally — including the Honor Magic4 Pro, Oppo Reno 8 Pro, and Xiaomi 12 — in 2022.

The developments represent a significant change from their previous focus being primarily on the budget and mid-range segments in South Africa.

When it comes to true flagship smartphones, two brands currently dominate in South Africa — Apple and Samsung.

But for several years there was a third major contender in this space — Huawei.

The Chinese company shifted from primarily being a background partner for telecoms infrastructure providers to a powerful smartphone brand in its own right.

It achieved this by offering high-end smartphones with impressive photographic capability and battery life at more affordable prices than the iPhone and Galaxy S series.

At the time of its launch, the Huawei Mate 30, the company’s last flagship smartphone with GMS, was a stunning beast of a smartphone

But the tide turned against the once best value-for-money brand after the US banned companies within its borders from doing business with Huawei.

That was allegedly due to its close ties to the Chinese government and fears that Huawei might use its technology to spy on US interests.

As a result, Huawei has not been able to offer official Google apps or support or Google Mobile Services (GMS) on new flagship smartphones for over two years.

Aside from losing support for GMS, the company has also been cut off from the latest chips that employ US-patented technologies.

Huawei has been unable to offer 5G on its latest handsets, made all the more ironic by its dominance as a 5G network provider.

Despite the company’s immense efforts to explain that it still offers much the same functionality as before through various alternatives, its market share has taken a significant blow.

According to data from GlobalStats Statcounter, Huawei’s market share in South Africa declined from 26.13% in October 2021 to 20.37% in October 2022.

At one point before the US ban, Huawei accounted for nearly one in every three smartphones sold in the country.

Xiaomi and Oppo have passed Nokia to become the fourth and fifth most popular brands in South Africa, with respective market shares of 2.66% and 2.35% as of October 2022.

Huawei has continued to maintain substantial traction in the budget and mid-range categories in South Africa thanks to the popular P Smart and Nova range.

Telkom recently told MyBroadband the P Smart accounted for more than half of its Huawei smartphone sales in 2021.

But the appeal of Huawei’s flagship smartphones has waned substantially since the glory days of the P20, Mate 20, P30, and Mate 30. Since then, every new Huawei smartphone released without support for GMS.

The country’s biggest mobile network operator — Vodacom — told MyBroadband that Apple and Samsung dominated its premium segment.

While Huawei launched its most recent flagship — the P50 Pro — in South Africa this year and brought its premium foldables to market, it is noteworthy that the P-series section of the official Huawei Online South Africa Store is currently barren.

The company is far more active in promoting its budget and mid-range options in this store, with the flagship smartphone now only available through resellers.

Huawei P50 Pro

Huawei’s counterparts in China have pounced on the opportunity to win market share — globally and in South Africa.

Perhaps one of the clearest sign that Xiaomi has big plans for the South African market is the recent launch of its first store in the country in Sandton City in Johannesburg. It is also planning to open another in Canal Walk in Cape Town.

Honor’s CEO for the Middle East and Africa, Likun Zhao, has also made the company’s local intentions clear — beat Samsung’s flagship smartphone market share within three device generations or roughly three years.

Zhao previously achieved this for Huawei, where he worked until 2020.

Another Chinese contender making inroads in South Africa is Vivo, although it is yet to launch a flagship locally and primarily offers budget models.

The best of China

We decided to compare the latest top-end smartphones available from Huawei, Honor, Oppo, and Xiaomi, which are officially available in South Africa.

The smartphone which stacked up best against the P50 Pro in terms of pure specifications was the Magic4 Pro, which also costs R500 less.

The Reno8 Pro and Xiaomi 12 also had some advantages over Huawei’s model, including bigger batteries, faster wired charging speeds, and higher pixel counts for their front cameras.

That was despite costing between R4,500 and R8,000 less than the P50 Pro.

However, if there is one area where the smartphones fall short of Huawei, it’s in main camera department.

According to DxOMark’s latest smartphone camera rankings, the P50 Pro has the sixth-best camera system of any smartphone in the world, scoring 143.

While the Honor Magic4 Ultimate outranks the P50 Pro, it is not available in South Africa. It is also outranked by the Huawei Mate 50 Pro, which currently sits at the top of DxOMark’s charts.

The table and images below show how the specifications and designs of Chinese flagship smartphones in South Africa stack up.

Honor  Magic 4 Pro

Huawei P50 Pro

Oppo Reno8 Pro

Xiaomi 12

Now read: Xiaomi 12S Ultra concept smartphone features a proper camera lens mount

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