Samsung has dropped the idea of establishing a manufacturing plant in Nigeria because its market share in the country is not big enough, reports CommunicationsWeek citing the firm’s Africa CEO, Sung Yoon. Yoon told a media briefing in Nigeria that manufacturing a mobile phone requires 400 components and that none is available in Nigeria. He said that though Samsung was the leading consumer electronic company in Nigeria, its share of the market is smaller than South Africa’s.
He said Samsung’s smartphone market share in South Africa is 80 percent, but is lower in Nigeria. According to him, other issues that affect the building of a factory in the country are infrastructure, return on investment (ROI) and the grey market. Yoon said building a production plant depends on the ROI and efficiency of the economy.
He said that the company had manufacturing plants in Vietnam, China, South Africa and Korea, hence having one in Nigeria is a thing of the future. Yoon said Nigeria’s population of 180 million was a power for the future, a reason why Samsung wanted to be part of corporate citizenship. He said annually, the company spent USD 16 billion globally on research and development (R&D), sells over 700 mobile phones every minute and over 41,000 every hour worldwide.
Yoon said Samsung’s African vision was to be the most admired brand, through partnership and profitable growth. The CEO called on Samsung distributors and dealers to always inform the company of its sales drives, to enable it to fashion its products accordingly and improve service visibility for consumers.
