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Beware of counterfeit phones – NCC warns

By on September 15, 2015

Between 15 per cent and 20 per cent of phones in the market are counterfeit, Acting Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission, Prof. Umar Danbatta, has said.

Danbatta said this at a stakeholders meeting on combatting counterfeit and sub-standard Information and Communications Technology devices in Abuja on Thursday.

He said the high incidence of substandard phones affect both the quality of service in the telecommunications industry and the health of consumers.

The NCC boss said, “Counterfeiting is a growing economic problem affecting a wide range of products. In the ICT sector, mobile phones are especially targeted with 250 million counterfeits sold annually.

“This number constitutes about 15 per cent to 20 per cent of the global mobile phone market. Apart from the obvious negative economic impact of this ugly trend on the manufacturers of genuine products; it also impacts negatively on governments, authorised dealers and others in terms of brand devaluation, loss of revenue, copyright and trademark infringement, unfair competition, loss of tax, cost of compliance with applicable national legislation, national security and loss of employment opportunities.

“This menace also poses danger to the health and safety of consumers and equally breaches the privacy of consumers. For us we are very concerned with the negative effects on communication network operations as it concerns degrading equality of service delivery.”

Speaking at the event, Director, EMEA for Mobile Manufacturers Forum, Mr. Thomas Barmuller, said 21 per cent of substandard and counterfeit mobile phones are found in Africa and the Middle East.

According to him, counterfeit phones and ICT products come with real threat and also put personal and private information at risk.

On quality of service, Barmuller said one in four drop calls is caused by fake phones. Fake phones, he added, cause delay in handover during mobile communication by 41 per cent while every third handover actually fails.

 

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