Nicholas Qin is the chief operating officer, Tecno Mobile Limited and he believes that it is not good to try to stop knowledge from going forward.
He spoke to Samson enato.
Overview of TECNO and Nigerian Footprint
In the year 2008, TECNO decided to focus on Africa as its key market and accordingly launched TECNO brand strategy.
Through three years of efforts, TECNO has achieved initial success with its outstanding and unique marketing strategy, and has now become one of the most popular mobile phone brands in many countries in Africa.
As a global mobile phone brand, TECNO has offices in countries and regions like China, Hongkong, South Asia, UAE and most African countries while we majorly focus on Africa, like Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya.
TECNO has been well accepted by Nigerian consumers and people are purchasing TECNO for its good quality, general features, professional services and innovative technologies.
Analysis shows that TECNO is now ranking number two in terms of market share in Nigeria and number one in dual SIM category in entire Africa.
The good thing is that in these countries where we have strong presence, we have established partnerships with the strong networks; which drives our spread.
One thing is that if you buy TECNO, there will be no complain.
Our phones are user friendly and affordable.
Our batteries last longer too. And when one visits our customer service centres, we do not hesitate to attend to them.
There are little things other companies over look, which we take very serious. Our customers are kings.
Assessment of the Nigerian Mobile Phone Market
Nigeria is the most populated country in Africa.
Currently, it has the largest market demand for mobile devices with a total estimated market size of 40 million handsets.
Thus, undoubtedly, Nigeria is considered by all major players, one of the most important markets globally.
Well, Nigeria is an energetic, passionate and youthful promising country. Its people have a very keen sense of fashion, internationalization as well as the world’s latest technology.
People are having the same standard towards fashion, technology and trend as those in USA and European countries.
Nigerian people are very brand-oriented and fashionable. Their high level of standard and pursuit leads the industry to a very promising future.
TECNO Loaded App Versus Others
TECNO has a good number of general applications embedded in most of its phones.
While we have specially, official co-operations with companies like Opera mini, Facebook etc. to make sure that we are providing genuine and original applications to consumers.
Besides those internationally popular applications, TECNO also dedicates to many localized applications like Draught which is developed by TECNO itself. Also, to provide consumers with best music experience, TECNO is cooperating with SPINLET that brings the latest music to our people.
And very soon, we are going to include Nigerian applications or contents. Nigerians have technology ideas, and from our side we want to get closer to local apps developers to get those contents.
TECNO Smart phones
TECNO always believes that we should supply what market needs rather than what we have.
As I stated earlier, Nigerian people are fashionable, trendy, passionate about new technologies, like Smart phones, surfing the internet and App demands.
By the demand and trend of the marketplace, we will launch our smart series shortly by aggressive functions and user experience.
Price of TECNO Smart Phones
With our R&D office in the centre of the world’s mobile phone industry, we can instantly introduce the latest technology and new ideas into African market.
TECNO aims to bring a more joyful and convenient life to all of us.
Having good cooperation with those big chipset suppliers and integrated industry advantages, TECNO has gained full supports from upstream and downstream partners that make TECNO phones more competitive in price and raw material quality.
With all the advantages and strengths, TECNO is to launch a series of smart phones with different screen sizes as 3.5", 4.0" and 5.0"; with Dual-Core and Qual-Core.
To reveal a secret, we are about to launch one new Smart Phone, TECNO N3; which will be a huge surprise to the Nigeria market.
Fast Selling Phones and CSR
‘Focus on Africa and Root in Africa’ being our motto, we have always behaved as a responsible brand in this continent.
We pay great attention to the future of the country, the youths.
We have sponsored some middle-school sports events, football teams in Lagos Polytechnics, CEEY comedy show in University of Lagos and some school graduation ceremonies.
Also, to stand against fake products and the show our determination in fighting the counterfeits, we have sponsored the quality control movement by the Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON) and jointly put the efforts to provide Nigerian people with genuine products.
Meanwhile, TECNO is participating in people’s lives in many ways; we sponsored the country’s pride, Nollywood Awarding Ceremony, which is liked by most Nigerian people.
To carry out the responsibility of a global company, TECNO also supported some community security plans that ensure people live and work in a harmonious environment. In the future, TECNO will continue its social responsibility and contribute more to the society and the country.
TECNO Preferred Mobile Phone in Nigeria
First of all, TECNO has always insisted on its motto: ‘Quality Always’ which has gained the public’s general recognition.
Secondly, TECNO has been recognized as the first brand that introduced Dual-SIM phones into Africa and this movement has greatly changed peoples’ lives by bringing more convenience in communications and saving more cost of calling and SMS among different operators.
Also, TECNO currently has its service centres in 9 major cities and collection points in all the major cities in Nigeria with more to come. We are providing consumers with convenience and professional care.
By the way, TECNO is the first brand that announced 12+1 months warranty in Nigeria and Africa which shows our full confidence in our product quality.
TECNO Partnership with MTN and Etisalat
The sole aim of the partnerships is to bring good products to the door-steps of the customers.
Nigerians also appreciate good phones. So, imagine that the most popular products go with the most trustable network service.
And as we work together we offer the end-user the best result; I must tell you that people will not hesitate to follow.
TECNO aims to provide sound quality hardware and user-oriented software with beneficial packages like mobile internet bundle, app pre-load and download from the biggest operators.
This kind of cooperation can bring people more benefits in user experience, budget planning and all other app experiences.
A few weeks ago, TECNO launched its Opera Mini phones T638 and T608 which are very much favoured by Nigerian customers.
To bring people more benefits, T638 is now promoted jointly by TECNO and MTN with surprisingly beneficial data bundles while T608 is on the go with ETISALAT.
Meanwhile, we at TECNO are open and ready to build long term relationship with operators, hence it will enhance the acceptability and penetration of the products, and the customers will appreciate it more.
Manufacturing Plant in Nigeria
Well, initially when we entered the Nigerian market, we had such plan; however, currently we are focusing on offering Nigerians quality products and services.
Perhaps, we should not forget in a hurry that most of the IT providers in Nigeria are from China, so, we rate Nigeria high.
And currently, we employed Nigeria engineers in discharging our projects, because Nigerians know Nigeria.
And it is our part of local empowerment. Now, we are intensifying a fight against low quality products.
How do I mean? To fight low quality products, you have to push high quality and affordable ones in to the market.
