SMARTPHONES that comes with low price have in the last one year taken over the mobile
phones market in Nigeria, and the presence of its impact ha been noticed
globally.
A
study conducted by ABI Research, a global research company had indeed confirmed
that the low-cost smartphone shipments would grow from 238 million in 2013 to
758 million by 2018.
According
to a forecast by market intelligence firm ABI Research handsets in the lower price
bracket will account for 44 per cent of all smartphone shipments by 2018.
Director of Operator Department, TECNO
Group, Mr. Arit Chowdhury, who was in the country to launch one of the Tecno
brand smartphones told Nigerian Compass in an interview
that Tecno phones are not cheap as many believe.
He
said that Tecno has positioned itself in the market to provide consumers with
affordable technology that are found in most expensive smartphones, a trendy
that the ABI Research study has revealed.
He
said that the technology found in smartphones are also in all smartphone of the
Tecno brand adding that they were design to ensure that every Nigerian have
access to smartphones.
The
ABI study predicted global low-cost smartphone shipments will grow because of
the the low penetration of expensive smartphones
and the large subscriber bases of those using low-cost smartphones found
developing countries.
ABI
senior analyst, Michael Morgan said research showed the feature gap between
low- and high-end smartphones is decreasing, making low-cost smartphones a
"good enough solution" for price-sensitive consumers in all markets.
This
forecast coincides with a recent analysis by Canalys showing both Samsung and
Apple lost share to Chinese vendors which play on price to gain traction.
Collectively,
the five Chinese vendors shipping the most devices worldwide are Lenovo,
Yulong, Huawei, ZTE and Xiaomi – made up 20 per cent of the total market, up
from less than 15 per cent a year ago.
Managing
director for World Wide Worx, Arthur Goldstuck also predicted an even bigger
low-cost smartphone market domination by 2018, saying he believes two-thirds of
the smartphones in the market will be low-cost.
"The
percentage of low-cost smartphone shipments is likely to be a lot higher once
all smartphone manufacturers have low-cost options and also when those low-cost
options have become far more powerful," said Goldstuck.
For
instance, the Goldstuck noted that in South Africa the trend is already
prevalent adding, "The fastest growing smartphone brand in SA is Samsung
and the most popular Samsung smartphones are the lower cost ones. The Galaxy
Pocket in particular has really given Samsung a massive boost in this
market."
In
Nigeria, investigations showed that Tecno, HTC and iTel have taken hold of the
market as low-cost brand that consumers patronise.
The
patronage of low-cost smartphones have already shown a lot excitement in the
country according to Chowdhury of Tecno due to the features that are not
different from those found in brands like Samsung, Apple and Nokia.
For
instance, Chowdhury said that the desire to give quality to its customers made
it to partner deliver high quality smartphones adding that is why its TECNO N3 is
powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon MSM7225 chipset with
1GHz processing speed that allow consumers to enjoy
a higher Internet speed running on the high performing Android 2.3 operating
system.
And Goldstuck noted too that low-cost
smartphones already offer a positive user experience at a fraction of the price
of high-end phones saying that it is expected that Apple will also next month
announce a low-cost iPhone that will target the developing world.
"I
think it is important to note, however, what is low-cost to Apple may not be
low-cost to developing markets. If it is a phone that competes with the
entry-level BlackBerrys and the Samsung Galaxy Mini, for example, it will
obviously pick up significant market share in that segment of the market, which
is existing smartphone users.
“But
it is not going to pick up from the big growth curve that's coming, which will
be from people migrating from feature phones to smartphones. That market is
still the biggest potential market for smartphones."
