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Foreign dominance of phone market worries FG

By on July 18, 2013

The Federal Government is worried about the 100 per cent dominance of the mobile phone production and assembly market by foreign companies.

As if that is not enough, 78 per cent of the market share of the mobile networks is being controlled by international firms.

The development, which was confirmed in a recent review of the sector by the Ministry of Communications Technology, informed the putting together of a stronger local content guideline by the Federal Government.

To reverse the foreign dominance, it was learnt that the government was currently working towards creating enabling environment for innovation, lower market-entry barriers and increase participation by Nigerian companies, while also encouraging the offshoot of new technology businesses.

A draft of the sector review document read in part, “The Nigerian ICT industry is dominated by international companies. They have 100 per cent of mobile phone market share; 70 per cent of the personal computer market share; and 78 per cent market share of mobile network operators.

“Participation of local companies is further restricted by the predominance of unspecialised value chains, with highly fragmented industry and intense competition in limited ‘fringed’ sub-sectors.”

According to the Federal Government, handset manufacturing will be a key market for local designed applications, games, films, blogs and news as well as applications created around data sets under the Open Government Projects.

In a bid to drive creativity and make businesses in the country competitive globally, there are also plans by the government to train best talents in the country and connect them to industry innovation hubs.

The talents are expected to be produced from various human capital development projects of the government like the Tech Launch Pad initiative and incubation programme set-ups, among others.

 

 

[Punch[