Best-selling budget smartphone in South Africa

The best-selling budget smartphone in South Africa is the Samsung Galaxy A04e, according to the country’s two biggest mobile networks and top online retailer.

Smartphones are the primary way in which most South Africans access the Internet, and given the affordability constraints of many households, many are looking for entry-level devices.

Thanks to the high demand, the budget smartphone segment is highly contested, with several local and international brands competing for customers’ attention and money.

The participation of a number of Chinese brands has further intensified competition in the past few years.

MyBroadband asked the country’s major mobile network operators and leading online retailers for their top five best-selling smartphones under R5,000 in the first half of 2024 and what trends they observed regarding the types of phones being sold in this category.

South Africa’s biggest mobile network, Vodacom, said the most notable change in budget buying trends was customers increasingly switching from 3G to affordable 4G smartphones.

On the other side, MTN South Africa said it observed no major changes from the previous year, with the top brands largely remaining the same.

The operator also shared its top-selling devices overall for the year. Topping the list was the Nokia 105 and Mobicel C2.1 feature phones.

Takealot said the one big change in budget smartphone sales on its marketplace has been the emergence of Chinese brand Honor, which joined Samsung, Xiaomi, and Huawei as a best seller.

In addition to Honor, Oppo and Realme recorded the biggest growth in sales on Takealot in the first six months of 2024

Realme only officially launched in South Africa in mid-2023 but had already sold 20,000 devices by April 2024.

The undisputed budget king

However, the smartphone model leading sales at Takealot, Vodacom, and MTN in the first six months of 2024 is the Samsung Galaxy A04e.

This budget device was first launched in October 2022 and rolled out in South Africa in January 2023.

The nearly two-year-old smartphone’s retail price has remained at R1,999 since its debut.

However, at the time of publication, MyBroadband found it selling for as little as R1,689 from Game 4U.

The A04e’s specifications are nothing to write home about — at least not for seasoned smartphone enthusiasts.

Its key features are a 6.5-inch display, 5,000mAh battery, and dual 13MP + 2MP rear camera with 5MP selfie shooter.

These are fairly typical for cheap 4G smartphones in South Africa, although the A04e has a slightly faster MediaTek Helio P35 chip than those priced around R1,000.

Overall, it should offer more than enough power and capability for casual smartphone users with limited budgets.

Other top contenders

The only other models that featured from two or more of the providers were the Samsung Galaxy A05 and Galaxy 05s.

These offer slightly better features than the Galaxy A04e, with retail prices of R500 and R900 more, respectively.

That extra money on the Galaxy A05 gets buyers several upgrades — including a faster chip, more RAM, bigger 6.7-inch screen, double the storage capacity, a 50MP + 2MP rear camera combo, and faster 25W charging.

The Galaxy A05s adds a better screen resolution, 2MP depth camera, and a side-mounted fingerprint reader in addition to the features of the base A05 listed above.

Another brand that featured prominently among the best sellers was Hisense, with one model in Vodacom’s top five and two in MTN’s.

The table below shows Vodacom, MTN, and Takelot’s top-selling smartphones in the first half of 2024.

Mobile network/retailer	Top-selling smartphone models
Vodacom	1. Samsung Galaxy A04e 2. Hisense U70 3. Itel A05s 4. Honor X5 Plus 5. Samsung Galaxy A15
MTN	1. Samsung Galaxy A04e 2. Hisense U964 3. Hisense U31 4. Samsung Galaxy A05 5. Samsung Galaxy A05s
Takealot	1. Samsung Galaxy A04e 2. Samsung Galaxy A05 (range) 3. Samsung A15 4. Xiaomi Redmi 13C