Anthony Nwakaegho/DigitalSENSE Business News
Weak patronage
for locally assembled personal computers (PC) has been identified as the bane
of the 21.5 per cent growth rate in Nigeria.
The Director,
Statistics and Research, NITDA, Mr Inye Kemabonta, in a recent chat with newsmen advised indigenous computer manufacturers set
the agenda for the government by critically considering the idea of building a
common platform for their operations as most PC plants in the country are
running very high overhead costs.
The Group
Managing Director, Omatek Computers Plc,
Mrs Florence Seriki, said “Funding is a local challenge because banks won’t
fund hardware makers and besides, the interest on loans starts from 20 percent,
while abroad, it is three percent, which makes foreign products to have a
competitive edge.”
DigitalSENSE Business News
gathered from the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) that
the country needs about three million computers yearly to serve the growing local
market and out of the 740,000 PCs acquired by Nigerians in 2012, only 148,000
were manufactured locally which translates to mean that 80 percent of the PCs
bought by citizens last year were foreign brands.
Most prominent
of local brands include: Zinox Computers, Omatek Plc, Brian Computers, Beta,
Veda, etc. Interestingly, half of the 20 percent market share is controlled by
a single brand, while foreign brands like HP, Dell, Samsung, Acer, among
others, are said to control 80 percent of the PC market in Nigeria.
One of
the easiest ways DigitalSENSE
Business News was informed by the experts is put in place a regulatory measure that would create the
demand frame work to absorb the supplies of local computers by making schools
to build laboratories that will be equipped with such computers.
Industry
experts are of the view that the local PC local manufacturers, who now control
only 20 percent of the market must invest in research and development to woo
consumers to their products, while government fully implement policies that
support local patronage and promote local content in Nigeria.
With
additional report from BusinessDay
... Making SENSE of digital revolution!
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