Smartphone unit sales in South Africa climbed by around 21 percent to over 12 million in 2017, even as people reduced their spending in most categories of the consumer technology market, according to point of sale data from market research firm, GfK South Africa.

Storage, media streaming device, and speaker retail sales also saw healthy growth last year, while tablet computer, desktop computer and mobile computer sales experienced sharp declines.

Sales of basic mobile phones dropped 11 percent as users migrated to smartphones, albeit entry-level ones from second-tier brands.

“Electronics, telecommunications and information technology retail experienced a difficult year in 2017 as consumers tightened their belts in response to economic difficulties in South Africa,” said Nikolay Dolgov, general manager of point of sales tracking at GfK South Africa.

“However, the smartphone market continued to show strong growth as more South Africans sought to get connected to the Internet and as smartphone prices continued to fall.”

GfK is a source of relevant market and consumer information from more than 13,000 market research experts. (via African News Agency)