Transsion Holdings () is a Chinese manufacturer of

mobile phone A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link whi ...

s based in

Shenzhen Shenzhen (; ; ; ), also historically known as Sham Chun, is a major sub-provincial city and one of the special economic zones of China. The city is located on the east bank of the Pearl River estuary on the central coast of southern provi ...

. It was the largest smartphone manufacturer by sales in Africa in 2017, and also sells mobile phones in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, South Asia, and Latin America. Its brands include phone brands such as Itel, Tecno,

Infinix Infinix Mobile is a China-based smartphone company founded in 2013 by Transsion Holdings. Infinix mobile phones are manufactured in France, India, Indonesia, Korea, China, Pakistan and are available in Asia and in about 30 countries in the M ...

; after-sales service brand Carlcare; and accessories brand Oraimo. It manufactures phones in

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...

Ethiopia Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the ...

Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mo ...

and recently in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...

History

Transsion Holdings Pvt Ltd was founded as Transsion Technology in Hong Kong in 2006, with a focus on the development, manufacturing, sales, and services of mobile communication products. Transsion entered the African market with its Tecno and Itel brands, and started focusing on the African market in July 2008, initially with

feature phone A feature phone (also spelled featurephone) is a type or class of mobile phone that retains the form factor of earlier generations of mobile telephones, typically with press-button based inputs and a small non-touch display. They tend to use an ...

s. Transsion released its first smartphone in 2014. Transsion set up its Nigerian subsidiary in June 2008, and had subsidiaries in seven countries in Africa by October that year. Transsion set up a manufacturing plant in Ethiopia in 2011. Transsion entered the Indian market in 2016. The market share of Transsion's smartphone brands in Africa combined surpassed that of

Samsung The Samsung Group (or simply Samsung) ( ko, 삼성 ) is a South Korean multinational manufacturing conglomerate headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea. It comprises numerous affiliated businesses, most of them united under the ...

in 2017, making Transsion the largest manufacturer of smartphones for the African market in the fourth quarter of 2017. Transsion was also the largest manufacturer of mobile phones in Africa in the first half of 2017. Transsion's 2018 attempt at a

reverse takeover A reverse takeover (RTO), reverse merger, or reverse IPO is the acquisition of a public company by a private company so that the private company can bypass the lengthy and complex process of going public. Sometimes, conversely, the public compa ...

failed. In October 2018, Transsion Holdings started producing smartphones in their new manufacturing plant in

. Transsion Holdings became a public listed company in September 2019 by listing on the

STAR Market Star Market is a New England chain of supermarkets based in Greater Boston. It was owned by the Mugar family and started in 1915. The company was sold to The Jewel Companies, Inc. in 1964 and later to Investcorp, which in turn sold the chain t ...

section of the

Shanghai Stock Exchange The Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) is a stock exchange based in the city of Shanghai, China. It is one of the three stock exchanges operating independently in mainland China, the others being the Beijing Stock Exchange and the Shenzhen Stock Excha ...

Operations

Transsion sells mobile phones in Africa, Middle East, Southeast Asia, South Asia, and Latin America. It operates mobile phone brands Tecno, Itel, and Infinix, as well as after-sales support service Carlcare and accessories brand Oraimo. Spice Digital, an Indian phone brand, was acquired in 2017. Transsion manufactures its phones in China, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan. Transsion was the first non-African mobile phone company to set up an after-sales support network in Africa. Transsion's success in the African market has been attributed to tailoring its phones' features to the needs of the African market. Transsion's phones offer a feature that calibrates camera exposures for darker skin tones, allowing face details to be retained. Transsion developed phones with

dual SIM Some mobile phones support use of two SIM cards, described as dual SIM operation. When a second SIM card is installed, the phone either allows users to switch between two separate mobile network services manually, has hardware support for keeping ...

functionality, which were well received because African users commonly used more than one

SIM card A typical SIM card (mini-SIM with micro-SIM cutout) A GSM mobile phone file:Simkarte NFC SecureElement.jpg, T-Mobile nano-SIM card with NFC capabilities in the SIM tray of an iPhone 6s file:Tf sim both sides.png, A TracFone Wireless SIM card ha ...

at a time to save money. Transsion released phones with long battery life, which are suited to low electrification rates in Africa and the propensity of blackouts. The phones included support for multiple African languages, and Tecno was the first major mobile phone brand in Ethiopia to include support for an

Amharic Amharic ( or ; (Amharic: ), ', ) is an Ethiopian Semitic language, which is a subgrouping within the Semitic branch of the Afroasiatic languages. It is spoken as a first language by the Amharas, and also serves as a lingua franca for all oth ...

keyboard. Transsion heavily advertises its mobile phone brands in Africa. Apart from its successes in the African market, Transsion is among the fastest growing smartphone brands in India, with a YoY growth of 40% in 2019. It was also the number one brand in the entry-level smartphone market. Transsion's mobile phones are mostly entry-level to lower middle-range, and therefore not being intended for business clients.

References

External links

* {{Electronics industry in China Holding companies of China Manufacturing companies based in Shenzhen Mobile phone companies of China Mobile phone manufacturers