Most popular mobile operating systems in South Africa

Android dominates the South African mobile operating system market, with a nearly 84% share.

According to data from StatCounter Globalstats, Android’s market share has remained fairly consistent over the past five years, dipping below 83% only briefly in 2022.

StatCounter GlobalStats analyses over five billion monthly page views for around 1.5 million websites to estimate the leading brands and vendors across various industries and regions.

While this can indicate a form of market share in terms of usage, it doesn’t reflect actual sales market share as tracked by organisations like Counterpoint and the International Data Corporation.

Android’s dominance in South Africa isn’t surprising. The Google-owned operating system is shipped with many mid-range and budget smartphones, which are popular due to the country’s high prevalence of low-income earners.

Android’s market share in South Africa grew from 83.44% in November 2020 to 83.95% in November 2021 before dipping to 82.43% in November 2022.

A year later, it had climbed to above 83% and had reached 83.85% as of November 2024.

Apple’s iOS is the next-most popular mobile operating system in the country. Its market share was 15.18% in November 2020, which climbed steadily to 15.65% in November 2021 and 17.21% in November 2022.

However, its share dropped to 16.59% in 2023 and 15.87% in 2024.

Statcounter Globalstats also collects market share data for lesser-known mobile operating systems like Samsung, Tizen, Linux, Series 40, and Nokia.

Of these, Samsung held the highest market share, at 0.19%, as of November 2024, up from 0.07% in November 2020.

Tizen held the highest market share of these mobile operating systems in November 2020, with a share of 0.17%. However, it had declined to 0.02% by November 2024.

Several distributions of Linux for mobile devices exist; combined, they held a 0.02% share of the South African market as of November 2024.

Series 40 is a Nokia operating system that was loaded on a wide range of mid-tier feature phones between 1999 and 2013. As of November 2024, it held a 0.01% market share in South Africa.

Statcounter also lists a “Nokia Unknown” operating system, which also had a 0.01% share as of November 2024.

The chart and table below track mobile operating system market share in South Africa from November 2020 to November 2024 using StatCounter GlobalStats data.