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One of China’s biggest smartphone makers 

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has never sold a handset in the country. 

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Yet thousands of miles away, 

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it dominates markets across Africa. 

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Unknown in the West, 

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Transsion has left global players like Samsung 

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and Apple trailing in its wake in a continent 

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that’s home to more than a billion people. 

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In cities like Lagos, Nairobi and Addis Ababa, 

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busy streets are awash with the bright 

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blue shop fronts of Transsion’s flagship brand, Tecno. 

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In China, the company doesn’t have a 

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single store, and its towering headquarters 

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in the southern megacity of Shenzhen goes largely 

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unnoticed among skyscrapers bearing the names of 

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more famous Chinese tech firms. 

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The company took a different path to success 

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from other top Chinese smartphone makers such as 

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Huawei and Xiaomi, which started out in China 

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before eventually expanding overseas. 

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Transsion built its business in Africa. 

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And it has no plans to come home. 

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In Edna Mall on the bustling Bole Road in Addis Ababa, 

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the capital of Ethiopia, 

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Mesert Baru poses for her Tecno Camon i. 

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“This phone is seriously nice for selfies,” 

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says the 35-year-old shop assistant, 

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admiring the picture she just took. 

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Mesert’s satisfaction is no accident. 

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Tecno cameras have been optimized for African complexions, 

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explains Arif Chowdhury, vice president of Transsion. 

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“Our cameras adjust more light for darker skin, 

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so the photograph is more beautiful,” he says. 

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“That’s one of the reasons we’ve become successful.” 

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Transsion founder George Zhu 

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had spent nearly a decade traveling Africa 

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as head of sales for another mobile phone company 

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when he realized that selling Africans handsets made 

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for developed markets was the wrong approach. 

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His timing could hardly have been better. 

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By the mid-2000s, the Chinese government, 

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under its “Going Out” strategy, 

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was encouraging entrepreneurs to look abroad 

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and forge stronger ties with African nations in particular. 

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Cell phones were spreading rapidly in China, but in Africa — 

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which has a roughly similar population — 

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they were still a very rare luxury. 

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Africa, in other words, could be the new China.