Chinese smartphone maker Transsion has never sold a handset in China, but dominates markets across Africa, beating global companies like Apple and Samsung to become market leader. In cities like Lagos, Nairobi and Addis Ababa, busy streets are awash with the bright blue shopfronts of Transsion’s flagship brand, Tecno. The company is based in Shenzhen but is largely unknown in China. It took a different path to success from other top Chinese smartphone makers such as Huawei and Xiaomi, which started out in China before eventually expanding overseas.

Tecno cameras have been optimized for African complexions, explains Arif Chowdhury, Vice President of Transsion. “Our cameras adjust more light for darker skin, so the photograph is more beautiful,” he says. “That’s one of the reasons we’ve become successful.” Transsion founder George Zhu has spent nearly a decade traveling through Africa as head of sales for another mobile phone company when he realized that selling Africans handsets made for developed markets was the wrong approach. In 2006, Zhu launched Tecno in Nigeria, targeting Africa’s most populous nation first. From the start, the company’s motto was “think global, act local,” which meant making phones that met African users’ specific needs.

“When we started doing business in Africa, we noticed people had multiple SIM cards in their wallet,” Chowdhury says. They would awkwardly swap the cards throughout the day to avoid the steep charges operators would levy for calling different networks, says Nabila Popal, who tracks the use of devices in Africa for research firm IDC. “They can’t afford two phones,” says Chowdhury, “so we brought a solution to them.” Zhu made all Tecno handsets dual SIM. More innovations followed. Transsion opened research and development centers in China, Nigeria and Kenya to work out how to better appeal to African users. Local languages such as Amharic, Hausa and Swahili were added to keyboards and phones were given a longer battery life.

African countries suffer frequent power breaks and some users might have to walk tens of kilometers to charge their phone at a local market, so an extended battery life was essential to win market share. But perhaps Transsion’s smartest move was its pricing. It has three main brands: Tecno, Infinix and Itel, selling for between USD15 and USD20, the South China Morning Post reports.

In the 2017-2018 Brand Africa 100 report, published by African Business Magazine, Tecno ranked as the 7th most admired brand in Africa. That was up from 14th the previous year, but it still lagged Samsung (2nd) and Apple (5th). Apple’s iPhone is still considered a luxury product that many Africans aspire to own but can’t afford.