A probe has found click fraud malware on Chinese-made phones from Africa’s leading seller

Africa’s largest phone maker is having a topsy-turvy month.

Despite the economic impact of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, Transsion Holdings, the Shenzhen, China-based phone maker, reported a 33% jump in net profit for the first half of 2020. Its smartphone shipments grew by 32% year-on-year increase in the second quarter of 2020. Transsion dominates both the low and middle sectors of the African phone market.

But Transsion’s profit boon comes on the back of worrying reports that tens of thousands of its phones were sold preinstalled with harmful malware which download subscription apps and sign users up for paid services without their knowledge. An investigation by Secure-D, a mobile phone security service owned by Upstream, reported that between March and December of 2019, its technology blocked 844,000 transactions linked to preinstalled malware on Transsion phones.

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