The recent report from a commissioned study carried out by Pew Research Centre, based in Washington D.C., USA, revealing that about 17 per cent of Nigerian adults are without smartphones, has provided fresh insights as to why every smartphone manufacturer is targeting Nigerian market for sales.
Only recently, both Samsung and Nokia unveiled and flooded the Nigerian market with their latest smartphones with varying innovative features to drive user appetite and experience upon the negative influence of both grey market and influx of refurbished smartphones.
Last year, about five to 10 Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) flooded Nigerian market with their latest smartphones as part of their drive to cut their niche from the massive smartphone market in the sub-Saharan economy.
However, the interest of the OEMs is just to market their products’ and exit the Nigerian market and not to stay and invest in production due to lack of government industrial policy consistency, infrastructure and power even though labour could be said to be on ground and even cheap to a large extent in Nigeria.
Besides, the major factor stopping many Nigerians from accessing smartphones remains high cost relative to the veiled naria devaluation by current administration.
Business Hilights recalls that Tecno and Samsung had two years ago, given a signal to build manufacturing plant and later changed their mind to Egypt and Kenya due to observed production shocks prevalent in Nigeria.
Additional details from the US study on usage of smartphone in Nigeria and other parts of the world reveal also that about 39 per cent owned a smartphone, while 44 per cent use ordinary mobile phone. Nigeria population currently hover around 200 million even though the government had not been able to conduct head count since the last one in 2006.
Pew Research Centre noted that smartphone ownership can vary widely by country, even across advanced economies.
Just as about nine-in-ten or more South Koreans, Israelis, and Dutch people own smartphones, ownership rates are closer to six-in-ten in other developed nations like Poland, Russia, and Greece.
The study, in emerging economies, too, smartphone ownership rates vary substantially, from highs of 60 per cent in South Africa and Brazil to just around four-in-ten in Indonesia, Kenya and Nigeria.
Among the countries surveyed, ownership is lowest in India, where only 24 per cent report having a smartphone.
However, the Pew study observed that in South Africa, which has a population of 58 million; only six per cent of the adults are without smartphones, while 60 per cent use at least one, 33 per cent use a mobile device that are not smart.
The study showed that Kenya with a population of 52.2 million, the adults without smartphone is 14 per cent; penetration of those with it is 41 per cent, while 45 per cent use mobile devices that are not smart.
Tunisia, another country surveyed, with a population of 11.8 million, 10 per cent of the adult population are without smartphones, 45 per cent has one each, while 45 per cent also use a mobile that is smart.
The Centre estimated that more than five billion people have mobile devices, and over half of these connections are smartphones. But the growth in mobile technology to date has not been equal, either across nations or within them.
