Phone manufacturers dumped Nigerian factory plans when Buhari came on board

IFE OGUNFUWA examines bottlenecks that have hindered foreign phone makers from establishing production plants in Nigeria as promised

There are indications that some foreign original equipment manufacturers of mobile phones have abandoned their plans to establish factories in Nigeria citing entry barriers into the market as the problem.

Despite experiencing market acceptability for their products and having growth prospects in Africa’s largest market for mobile devices, some of them have developed cold feet towards the establishment of the production centres in the country.

Makers of major mobile phone brands like Tecno, Samsung, Nokia, Motorola, and Blackberry had in the past indicated interest in establishing production plants and had promised to create millions of jobs. But findings by our correspondent showed that siting manufacturing facilities in Nigeria was no longer on the table for the OEMs.

Findings also revealed that the market shares of some of the OEMs had been eroded by the emergence of cheaper phone brands.

Statistics from Euromonitor showed that mobile phone brands owned by Transsion Holdings, maker of Tecno, Itel and Infinix, have the highest market share in the country.

The 2018 report indicated that Tecno had 41 per cent market share, Itel had 25.8 per cent market share while Infinix ranks fourth with 8.5 per cent market share.

According to the data, Nokia ranks third in the Nigerian market with 8.7 per cent market share while Samsung devices are the fifth fast-selling brand with 7.6 per cent market share.

Punch