Taiwanese mobile phone maker, HTC, said its new smartphone, One M9, will be sold in South Africa this June. South Africa will be the first African country to sell the new device. HTC said the One M9 smartphone will be sold by South African operators and that pre-orders will be made available starting next month.

The One M9 smartphone was unleashed at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, last month. It follows the HTC’s One M8 smartphone, which was considered a global success.

Neeraj Seth, HTC’s head of marketing in the Middle East and Africa, notes that South Africa is one of their critical markets. “We are here to put the right infrastructure in place,” TechCentral quoted Seth as having said on Thursday.

He admitted that HTC had made mistakes with regard to the South African market, by ignoring the country as an important market. However, research has shown that these mistakes did not negatively affect sentiments on the brand among South African clients. “In research we have done in South Africa, HTC is one of the few brands consumers really love,” Seth told TechCentral.

HTC first set foot in South Africa ten years ago after sealing a partnership deal with local distributor Leaf International. It later entered directly by opening its own offices in 2012. It then left the South African market again before appointing Ingram Micro as its local distributor.