Samsung vs Huawei — The Android king of South Africa

When it comes to Android smartphones in South Africa, two brands stand out from the rest — Samsung and Huawei.

According to data from GlobalStats Statcounter, these two manufacturers have the most popular smartphone brands in the country, by some margin.

As of March 2022, Samsung had captured almost half of the entire smartphone market in the country — around 48.12%. Huawei claimed second place, at 23.88%, putting it well ahead of Apple’s share of 15.96%.

The popularity of these two smartphone makers is easy to understand — both offer numerous device options across the budget, mid-range, and flagship categories.

But a trend in the data shows that Huawei’s slice of the pie has dropped radically from around June 2021.

The company peaked at just under 30% market share in 2019 — the same year the US ban on American companies doing business with Huawei was first announced.

The once-dominant Chinese manufacturer dropped out of the global top five smartphone makers in 2021 and has also fallen out of the top five for sales in China.

The decline is primarily due to Huawei’s latest smartphones not offering official support for Google Mobile Services (GMS), which means you won’t get apps like YouTube, Gmail, Google Maps, or Google Drive.

In stark contrast, Samsung’s devices boast close integration with Google services and apps.

Samsung has been working closely with Google on smartphone and smartwatch software.

Most recently, the Galaxy S22 was the first to get exclusive new features, such as YouTube previews in Google’s Messages app, which also became the default messaging service on the latest Samsung flagships.

Google has also integrated certain voice access features on the S22 and Tab S8.

Samsung is also regularly the first manufacturer to get the latest Android updates after Google’s own Pixel devices.

The restrictions on Huawei go beyond software. The company can also not source any new chips that employ patented US technologies.

That has resulted in some of Huawei’s latest flagship smartphones shipping with older, slower processors missing 5G connectivity.

This is particularly ironic considering the manufacturer’s 5G networking technology dominance, including base station equipment and routers.

Huawei has two major selling points in its favour on the hardware side — excellent cameras and long-lasting batteries.

Huawei’s cameras are generally better than Samsung’s, particularly at the high end, thanks primarily due to its long-standing partnership with German camera company Leica and its own photographic AI.

According to DxOMark’s smartphone camera rankings, Huawei had three of the best cameras on a smartphone in the top 10, while Samsung’s top option only came in 14th place.

Huawei’s smartphone software is also well-known for tapping a lot of power out of the battery without over-straining it, typically resulting in better uptime-per-mAh.

It also supports up to 66W wired fast charging on its flagship P50 range compared to the 45W you get with the S22 Pro and Ultra.

That means that charging up Huawei’s top-end phones will be significantly faster than doing the same with Samsung’s flagships.

Pricing 

When it comes to prices, it is a relatively tit-for-tat affair depending on the smartphone category.

In the budget segment, Huawei’s Y5p retails for R200 cheaper than the Galaxy A3 Core.

But at the opposite end, Huawei’s latest flagship P50 Pro starts at R19,999, compared to R17,999 for the Galaxy S22.

Samsung has one more card up its sleeve in this area — a solid trade-in programme that offers owners significant discounts.

Most recently, Samsung launched a guaranteed R10,000 trade-in discount when upgrading to the Galaxy S22 and swopping in one of several Apple, Huawei, or Samsung flagships smartphones.

Our comparison of smartphone trade-in programmes showed that the Samsung Galaxy S21 and Galaxy S21 Ultra generally got much higher trade-in values than the Huawei P40 and P40 Pro.

Cellucity CEO Sean Joffe recently told MyBroadband that Huawei and its Chinese counterparts would have to formulate a new trade-in regime to compete in South Africa’s higher-end smartphone market.

Pros and cons

The table below summarises the pros and cons of Samsung and Huawei smartphones.