Chinese handset manufacturer Xiaomi will continue its international expansion after announcing plans to begin selling two of its devices in Africa later this month.

The company, which in July made its first steps outside of Asia after bringing its low cost smartphones to Brazil, will sell the Redmi 2 and Mi 4 in South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya from the middle of November.

The company recently lost top spot in its domestic Chinese smartphone market to rival Huawei according to research from Canalys, while also dropping to fifth place in the global smartphone market, according to Strategy Analytics.

 

In Africa, Xiaomi will make sales through a distribution partnership with Mobile in Africa Group (MIA), suggesting the company is struggling to replicate its innovative online sales model in other markets.

According to CNET, MIA will handle sales, marketing and customer support in the three countries.

Xiaomi, which is valued at approximately $46 billion, relies on word of mouth marketing on social media for online sales, which has thus far allowed it to keep costs down.

“We see Africa as the next frontier for smartphone growth,” Raymond Tian, Xiaomi’s global strategy director reportedly said in a statement. “We are excited to be partnering with MIA Group to offer consumers in these three countries our high quality smartphones at amazing prices.”

Xiaomi will hope its African play will start to pay off instantly, after setting a target to achieve between 80-100 million smartphone sales by the end of this year. In its H1 results, the company said it sold just under 35 million phones.