China is all over Africa. From the east, where it provided funding to build the Ethiopia-Djibouti railway, to  Ivory Coast, where it out-muscled French contractors to win a $160 million deal to build a bridge in Abidjan, Beijing is leading conversations on the continent.

But China is investing in more than the usual construction and resource-heavy industries. Chinese businesses are huge winners in Pay TV, smartphone technology, and other areas within the telecoms industry. In fact, “nearly half of Chinese firms in Africa have introduced a new product or service to the local market, and more than one-third have introduced a new technology,” says a McKinsey report on some 10,000 Chinese firms operating inside Africa.

In all their dealings, Chinese businesses have relied on strong diplomatic relationships between Beijing and their destination countries. They have also built partnerships with local firms in a manner that has seen them chalk tremendous successes on the continent.

StarTimes

For a long time, MultiChoice was the major player in the Pay TV space in most African countries. It offered a bouquet of channels ranging from sports, news, music, and films to the continent’s affluent community. This meant the majority of the citizens was left to rely on free-to-air TV and its attendant limited entertainment content. When StarTimes set up shop on the continent, they knew two things. One, MultiChoice was king; two, there was a vast audience in the free-to-air space that would want a slice of MultiChoice, even if at a certain cost. They set out to find that price point.

In Nigeria, they introduced that special price with a tweet: “NIGERIA: What if we told you that you can now pay per day, per week & per month? #StarTimesPaybyday”

It was a strategy that allowed them to get a foothold into the mass media market. Users could now subscribe on a Saturday afternoon and watch their favourite football matches without spending too much. They could enjoy their telenovelas and soap operas as and when they were available. In eight years, StarTimes has moved from only a handful of clients to 3 million subscribers in Nigeria. It has surmounted MultiChoice as the dominant force in Pay TV.

This type of success has been replicated across the continent. In East Africa where it has a presence in Rwanda, Tanzania, and Kenya, StarTimes now controls a reputed 38% of the market, toppling MultiChoice. While the pricing model has been a major factor, StarTimes’ success has relied heavily on strong diplomatic relations.

The Chinese government plans to extend digital TV reception to 10,000 villages in Africa. In doing so, it has selected StarTimes as its executing arm to extend both Chinese content and technology to the folk. To ensure the successful implementation of this project, the Chinese government is ensuring a soft landing spot for StarTimes.

In Ghana, for example, StarTimes has received a contract to review and expand the current Digital Terrestrial Television installations. In a move largely lampooned by the country’s association of private broadcasters, GIBA, the government of Ghana will be able to access an estimated $19bn loan facility from the Chinese EXIM bank only if it gives StarTimes the contract to upgrade the current DTT installations. StarTimes is also receiving an import waiver of up to $3 million to distribute free set-top boxes to 300 Ghanaian communities in view of implementing the 10,000 village project.

StarTimes also set up a joint venture with the Tanzania Broadcasting Corporation to provide both Pay TV and free to air content, though it is said to have breached its license agreements regarding the latter.

By tying its goals with the hopes of receiver countries, China, through StarTimes, is making it easier to adopt Chinese solutions in Africa. StarTimes is established in 30 countries across Africa now, with an estimated 10 million subscribers.

Transsion Holdings

In the smartphone and feature phone market in Africa, Transsion Holdings is king. The Chinese company has 28% market share in Africa, beating longtime leader, Samsung. One of its flagship brands, Tecno, has sold over 200 million handsets on the continent. And, in 2017, it surpassed Samsung as the smartphone of choice among young Africans.

The modus of its operations is similar to that of StarTimes: Think global, build local. It’s ‘Glocalisation’ in all its glory. Transsion Holding recognised the market that existed on the continent. Where traditional brands catered for the sophisticated youth, Transsion moved into the under-served market segment, people who couldn’t afford the expensive brands. These are people who need their phones for Facebook, mobile money, and a few other things beyond that.

Transsion Holdings built cheaper handsets that catered to these customers. Tecno, Itel, and Infinix have phones that go for as low as $50, which is well within the budget of many Africans. Understanding the power challenges of many African countries, they incorporated batteries that had longer lifespans than usual their traditional counterparts. With integrated torch lights and loudspeakers, the longer battery life was practical for the average user in sub-Saharan Africa.

Another area Transsion focused on while venturing into the smartphone market was the communication infrastructure. Even in major cities across the region, poor quality calls result from incomplete and inefficient mobile infrastructure. This meant that for a long time, call costs were high in many African countries. To surmount this, people would require two mobile phones with two different networks. Seeing the challenge and opportunity, Transsion introduced its dual-sim technology to take advantage of networks that were better in some areas but poor in others.

The dual slots also allowed users to sample different offers from different call operators; some telcos were noted for cheap data charges while others have better call quality. In addition to call-quality and accessibility, dual sim slots meant subscribers could avoid out-of-network call charges.

In adapting technology to local needs, Transsion makes phones with camera settings more suitable to darker skin tones. It also featured the first Amharic keyboard in Ethiopia, where it has a 280,000 square foot factory. They also have keyboards in Swahili and Hausa to meet the needs of local clients.

Huawei

For two decades, Huawei has been a major contributor to the second wave of tech growth in Africa. Much of Africa’s mobile telecoms infrastructure was built by the Chinese company, a McKinsey report suggests.

It built Kinshasa’s cell towers and introduced 3G technology to Tanzania. In Kenya, the largest mobile phone-based micro banking provider, M-Pesa, runs on Huawei’s mobile money platform. Huawei’s infrastructure is purpose-built for Africa. Running on both smartphone applications as well as the more popular feature phones, the platform has become integral to extending banking and finance services to the under-served rural poor and urban dwellers alike. In Morocco and Egypt, Huawei technology is deployed to build broadband and copper cables to improve connectivity.

Like all things Chinese, Huawei achieved its success through strategic pricing and by building important partnerships with locals. It priced its products 5%-15% lower than competitors. It also applied wind and solar technology, two of the cheapest and most practical solutions for African economies. In 2009, it built its first telecoms R&D facility in South Africa, allowing it derive first-hand knowledge of the problems facing the country to be able to create tailor-made products at modest prices without compromising on quality. It has a similar facility in Nigeria, the continent’s largest economy by GDP.

Together with fellow Chinese firm, ZTE, Huawei has contributed to over 40 3G technology implementations in over 30 countries and has also provided e-government services in 20 countries. It is no surprise that Huawei is earning 15% of its global revenue on the continent. In South Africa, it sells smartphone to 14.5% of the young population.

Alibaba

Amazon is finding the African internet jungle much tougher than it would have imagined. With tangles of infrastructural challenges to African governments seemingly rooting for loans and everything made-in-China, Alibaba is emerging as a big winner.

Alibaba is a late bloomer within the African tech market. Jack Ma first visited the continent in 2017. That year, Alipay ventured into South Africa where it partnered with Zapper, a South African mobile payment platform. The deal gave Chinese tourists in the country the chance to pay for goods and services in 10,000 shops across South Africa.

Further mainland, Alibaba is partnering French giant Bollore to provide cloud computing and logistics support to Francophone Africa where the latter has a huge footprint. In East Africa, Alibaba is introducing Alipay and WeChat Pay through Kenya’s Equity Bank. As one of the largest banks in the region with a presence in Uganda, Tanzania, Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Sudan and Rwanda, the move will grant Alibaba strategic access to an important region of the African continent.

In Ghana, there are tentative talks at the Ministry of Food and Agriculture to leverage on Alibaba’s 400 million user platform to sell the country’s cocoa products. The details are still unknown, but knowing the challenges involved, it would not be far-fetched for Alibaba, through a local partnership, to provide logistic support to ensure smoother operations of the nation’s cocoa processing plants. This would be in keeping with the tech giant’s operations in Africa so far.

Instead of building whole and familiar infrastructure in the target regions like Amazon does, Alibaba focuses on local talent and strategic partnerships. Toward this end, Jack Ma instituted a $10 million dollar African Young Entrepreneurship Fund to reward and to nurture outstanding performers from the continent.

On a continent where mobile banking is more popular and practical for many small businesses, Alibaba’s experience in China will contribute to its continuous growth in cloud computing and business logistics needs.

No questions asked

Much has been said of China’s no-questions-asked approach. It is a bit of relief for a continent that has suffocated under tight leashes regarding how to elect leaders and for how long they should serve. Evidently, China wants to do business even as it pits itself against traditional superpowers. To do this, Chinese companies are following a tried and tested approach. Where western companies follow a top-to-bottom approach which often requires setting up the whole infrastructure, Chinese firms in the tech space are relying on local expertise. Where the West comes to teach, China comes to learn and partner.

China has liquidity and wants for resources to feed its billion-people nation. Africa has resources and wants for funds to build infrastructure. The price of the barter might well be paid through Alipay instead of PayPal.