The number of telecoms subscribers in Nigeria currently stands at over 140 million, according to statistics released by the industry regulator, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC). But the figure is likely to shoot up faster than before, following a new strategy deployed by most mobile phone manufacturers to sell their products directly on the e-commerce platform, which is the new line of business, where majority of Nigerians do visit on a regular basis for their online shopping.
Since the advent of e-commerce business in Nigeria, most Nigerians now feel more comfortable shopping online, a development that mobile phone manufacturers have decided to take advantage of to sell their mobile phones. Prominent among manufacturers are makers of Ininix and Innjoo brands of mobile phones, which launched some of their new brands into the Nigerian market recently.
Chinese smartphone manufacturer and the maker of Infinix mobility phone, has signed a long term partnership with Nigerian ecommerce company, Konga.com to further drive the sales of its products, through online business.
Entering into Nigeria's market, Infinix Mobility exclusively adopted Konga.com's ecommerce platform for the introduction of its first flagship device, the Infinix Zero. The unprecedented but very ingenious move saw Infinix enjoy record growth from Konga's widespread reach and penetration across Nigeria. Konga rose to the task of building popularity and preference for the Infinix Zero with strategic marketing campaigns and support and within the first few weeks of the device launch, Konga.com sold over 100,000 units of the product.
Since then, Infinix continues to reapply this winning model, retaining Konga as its exclusive partner for the launch of their devices. Country Manager for Infinix Nigeria, Bruno Li, who spoke on the new development, said: "With the heights that we seek to take the Infinix brand grow in Nigeria, it became clear to us that Konga is one company that would get us there."
In November 2014, Infinix launched another device on Konga.com called Infinix Hot X507. It was again, another success story. Today, on the back of innovative marketing and positioning led by Konga.com, Infinix has now grown to be one of the top selling mobile devices in Nigeria.
According to Konga's Marketing Vice President, Gabriel Gab-Umoden, "Konga is happy to be a part of this incredible success story. We bring to the fore the importance of local content in reaching customers. Our marketing and sales strategy is predicated on Konga's deep understanding of the Nigerian consumers and the best ways to reach them with the right value proposition in terms of competitive pricing and with excellent service delivery. We also commend Infinix for delivering top value in the mobile phone category. They have been instrumental in driving up smartphone and android penetration up in just a few months."
Konga's successes with introducing and building brands is pretty extensive. Some other brands of mobile phones in Nigeria today that are very well known and respected in the Nigerian market following joint launches with Konga.com, include Polystar, Lenovo, BlackBerry, Huawei, Gionee, Fly, Skyworth, and Saisho.
Another Chinese mobile phone manufacturer, which recently launched its fire brand of mobile phone into the Nigerian market and decided to sell its products, using the Jumia online platforms, is Innjoo.
Announcing a new range of product launch in Lagos penultimate week, following its flagship model launch in February this year, InnJoo said it preferred marketing its products online, using available e-commerce platforms in Nigeria, because of the new thinking of Nigerians in shopping online.
It is for this reason that Innjoo partnered Jumia.com as the first e-commerce platform to market its products for all Nigerians to see. As a new range of InnJoo product line, the fire brand offers exceptional value for its affordable price. With the just right size of 5 inch display, 2GB RAM and range of textures, the Fire brand has plenty of usable features and good camera to ignite the passion of the new generation Nigeria.
Speaking at the launch, InnJoo's Managing Director, Robert Liang said: "We are learning from the market, and InnJoo considers what the consumer wants. After months' studying, InnJoo knows that the premium quality products with competitive price and unsurpassed user experience is the key to satisfy the demand of end user, and that the best platform to sell the products and make them easily available for all Nigerians to see and feel, is the Jumia.Com platform."
Speaking on some of the features and designs of the Innjoo brand of mobile phones that are already available online, Liang said the InnJoo Fire design feels pretty good with slightly curved corners, and comes with 5 inch IPS display with auto-adjusting brightness. The slim body with fibre drawing craft frame gives the design elegance, balance and strength, as every detail has been created to improve the user experience.
The back cover is special designed with four textured colours - Classic Black, Elegant White, Luxury Gold and Natural Bamboo Yellow, which adopts the superior material of Ply Carbonate, that could protect smart device thoughtfully and show customer passion at the same time.
Underneath the cover is a removable 2,500mAh compact polymer battery size with high energy density technology that enables affordability of up to 176 hours standby and a full day normal use of battery.
Built-in Quad-core processor, Fire is well ready for handling daily applications and intense games in the meantime, allowing customers to enjoy a faster performance the 2GB read access memory (RAM). Its16GB flash memory also enables customer to store more photos, music and games.
Apart from mobile phone manufacturers, like Infinix Mobility and Innjoo, selling their products directly on the e-commerce platform, Jumia.com, one of the online platforms, is having a mega sale promo this week, tagged Mobile Week Megathon, where it is showcasing several brands of mobile phones and other items and selling them at discounted rates.
The Jumia Mobile Week, which started in Nigeria on June 1, 2015, will come to a close on June 7, 2015, where several mobile phone manufacturers, like Apple, Samsung, Nokia Lumia, Tecno, Innjoo, Infinix, among others, are displaying their brands of mobile phone. The phone manufacturers patterned Jumia to offer mega deals on their finest and latest mobile phones.
Jumia has been revolutionising the way of accessing the Nigerian market for mobile brands for three years now, providing trustworthy, direct and fast access to mobile phone products for customers.
Just as Jumia is celebrating its mobile week in Nigeria, those in Côte d'Ivoire are also having the experience because the company is also organising a mobile week promo on all its online items, including mobile phones in that country.
Billboards, TV and radio announcements, were used to sensitise the people of Côte d'Ivoire, on the mobile week promo on Jumia.
The Mobile Week, it was gathered, is being launched simultaneously in all the countries where Jumia operates, with astounding deals on mobile phones during a whole week. The concept is rather simple: one day, one brand. So throughout the seven days, shoppers will see devices of seven mobile phone brands listed at "shocking" prices. The promotion, which also started on June 1, in Côte d'Ivoire, witnessed an impressive Innjoo mobile phones and tablets on the first day of the promo, followed by Microsoft's Nokia Lumia on Tuesday 2, Itel on Wednesday 3, LG on Thursday 4. Infinix will display on Friday 5, while Samsung will display its products on Saturday 6 and finally, Xtigi will display on Sunday, June 7.
The Mobile Week is the result of five months of negotiations launched last January by Jumia.
Much more than a massive commercial operation, the Mobile Week holds a socio-economic dimension by offering thousands of smartphones at highly affordable prices. By this action, Jumia, MTN and the seven partnering brands intend to support government's efforts across countries where Jumia operates, to fight against high prices, while promoting mobile penetration and universal access to Internet.
According to the Ministry of Post and Information and Communication Technologies, in Côte d'Ivoire, the internet via smartphones is a major opportunity for bridging the digital gap and its adoption is already contributing to reduce it. In 2012, the internet penetration rate in Côte d'Ivoire, was less than one per cent. At the end of 2014, the rate jumped to 20 per cent with 97.63 per cent of internet subscribers using mobile technology, mainly smartphones.
Also, early data for 2015 indicates that the number of subscribers to a 3G mobile Internet access in Côte d'Ivoire, has jumped again to reach seven million subscribers, which is nearly 32 per cent of the population. This is a great tendency which can sustainably affect GDP growth as revealed by a McKinsey study stating that every 10 per cent of broadband penetration drives GDP up by 1.1 to 1.1 points.
Jumia and Konga are Africa's leading online shopping destinations. Both online platforms and many others are making Africans proud in online shopping, which is directly boosting e-commerce in Africa.
With the new trend of driving mobile phone sales online, there are strong indications that mobile phone penetration and telecoms subscriber growth rate in Africa, will double in the next few years.
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