Smartphones14.04.2025

Most affordable tap-to-pay smartphones in South Africa

While smartphones with the necessary technology to facilitate contactless payments cost above R2,000, one device in South Africa is priced under R1,500.

Smartphones must be equipped with a near-field communication (NFC) chip to support tap-to-pay functionality.

This technology has become more common on smart devices and payment terminals in recent years, supporting greater use of tap-and-go payments.

Therefore, several major South African banks have begun encouraging their customers to embrace digital wallets over physical plastic cards due to their improved security.

While tapping to pay with a physical card is already significantly safer than swiping or “dipping,” many banks don’t allow customers to change the maximum tap amounts before they must enter their PIN.

Criminals who make off with people’s cards can make numerous tap transitions without entering a PIN, potentially stealing thousands of rands before victims can cancel cards.

To encourage their use, all major banks in South Africa have added support for digital wallets like Apple Wallet, Google Wallet, Samsung Wallet, and Garmin Wallet.

FNB card division head of spend and customer value management, Ashley Saffy, told MyBroadband that the bank’s digital wallet volumes and values had increased by 74% and 77% between 2023 and 2024.

In the 2025 year-to-date, digital wallet volumes were tracking 50% higher than over the same period last year, while digital wallet values were 52% higher.

“The rapid growth in digital wallet adoption demonstrates their importance in the financial ecosystem,” Saffy said.

“With increasing transaction volumes and values, digital wallets are shaping the future of payments by offering a secure, convenient, and eco-friendly alternative to physical cards.

She said 1.27 million of FNB’s 8.6 million customers had adopted digital wallets.

Apple Pay is available exclusively to the iPhone 6 or later, and Samsung Pay for most Galaxy smartphones.

If you are using a recent Android smartphone priced at R4,000 or more, odds are that Google Pay/Wallet will likely be supported.

The exception is Huawei devices manufactured in the past few years, as they don’t support Google Mobile Services.

Tap-to-pay smartphones starting at R1,299

NFC technology has not yet become a common feature of budget smartphones in order to keep the devices affordable.

All but one of the smartphones included in the article — the Mara X1 — cost more than R2,000.

The X1 comes in at R1,299 from Takealot and is manufactured by a Rwandan company that previously set up a local factory in Durban, which closed in 2022 after failing to take off in South Africa.

The device has typical budget smartphone features such as 3GB of RAM, 32 GB of storage, and a 13MP camera. A dual SIM model is also available for R500 more.

The rest of the devices start at just under double what the X1 costs, ranging from the Honor X6 for R2,499 to the Samsung Galaxy A23 and Blackview A96 for just under R5,000.

Samsung’s Galaxy A16 is the most affordable of the South Korean brand’s smartphones to feature an NFC chip. While the Galaxy A15 also features one, it is more expensive than the A16.

Below are nine devices below R5,000 that feature NFC technology. All prices can be found on Takealot.