The Nigerian mobile phone market has been growing vigorously in the past few years, rallied by the rivalry between mobile phone brands offering decent and affordable mobile phones for users within the country.
Nevertheless, for every Samsung, Nokia or Tecno mobile phone, one would arguably find a clone or substandard mobile phone, sometimes bearing the names of those popular brands.
The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) supposedly reported that about 250 million clone phones are being sold yearly within the country.
This, it states, is particularly common with the importation of substandard fairly used phones from the United Kingdom, the United States or wherever: a market in high demand as customers are attracted by the relative affordability of those phones.
Taking this into account, the National Communications Commission, in its bid to make sure that mobile phones on sale in Nigeria are of sufficient quality and standard to be sold to consumers, has approved about 1,492 different brands and models to be used within the country.
According to the NCC’s list, Chinese phone brands like Tecno, Infinix, Itel, Huawei, ZTE and even recent entrants like Oppo, Xiaomi, and Vivo are taking over Nigeria’s fast-growing mobile phone market.
Usual suspects like Samsung, Apple (iPhone), Nokia and Blackberry also are present within the list.
Executive vice-chairman, NCC, Prof Umar Danbatta during a report, urged customers to refrain from buying phones that are not among those tested and located to satisfy the specified standard for operation within the Nigerian market.
He also encourages mobile phone users to visit the commission’s website and cross-check the list of approved phones from which they will make a more informed choice of the mobile phone to get.
When verifying any product on the NCC’s page, users should make sure to type in both the name and model number (e.g Xiaomi Redmi Note 8) within the search bar, so as to verify that their product is approved by the commission.
Although, it appears the list is yet to be updated with the latest mobile phone models as we couldn’t find any phone released after August 2019, but because the telecom regulator wants to extend sensitization, we expect the list to be updated as soon as possible.
While this initiative might be a step in the right direction, there remains the problem of telling an ingenious model aside from the fake model, i.e. telling a fake Xiaomi Redmi from the first. In this case, mobile brands may need a crucial role to play.
With the proper implementation, this might convince be a win-win situation for consumers and therefore the menace of clone phones in Nigeria.
Source: Techpoint Africa
