Samsung Electronics Co. was the second-largest smartphone vendor in the African smartphone market in the third quarter of the year, a report showed Wednesday, as the South Korean tech giant tries to expand its presence against Chinese competitors.

Samsung accounted for 20 percent of the African smartphone market in the July-September period in terms of units, down from a 24 percent share a year ago, according to market researcher International Data Corp. (IDC).

China's Transsion continued its dominance in Africa with a unit share of 44 percent, up from 36 percent a year earlier.

Huawei came in third with a 9 percent share, followed by Xioami with 7 percent and Oppo with 4 percent.

IDC said Africa's overall mobile phone market shipments declined 6 percent on-year in the third quarter of the year, with shipments of feature phones plunging 11.2 percent on-year to 29.4 million units.

However, smartphone shipments in the region increased 14.1 percent on-year to 22.9 million units due to pent-up demand amid eased COVID-19 lockdowns in the region.

IDC said mobile devices priced below $200 accounted for 89.3 percent of smartphone shipments to Africa in the third quarter.

"Demand for entry-level smartphones was driven by e-learning requirements since smartphones are the only device offering internet access for most households in Africa," said Ramazan Yavuz, a senior research manager at IDC. (Yonhap)