Samsung Electronics has said that one of the reasons for not
establishing a manufacturing plant in Nigeria is because its market
share in the country is not big enough.
Mr
Sung Yoon, the Chief Executive Officer of Samsung Electronics Africa,
made this known during an interactive session with newsmen on Thursday
in Lagos.
The Samsung CEO said that manufacturing a mobile phone
required about 400 different components, none of which is available in
Nigeria.
Yoon said that though Samsung was the leading consumer
electronics company in Nigeria, its share of the Nigerian market is
smaller to South Africa’s.
NAN reports that he said that the company’s smartphones market size in South Africa is 80 per cent, but is lower in Nigeria.
According
to him, other issues that affect the building of manufacturing plant in
the country are infrastructure, Return On Investment (ROI) and grey
market.
“We are trying to be a local company here. Building factory depends on return on investment and efficiency of the economy.
“There are lots of grey products coming into the country and this will affect the return on investment,” he said.
He
said that the company had manufacturing plants in Vietnam, China, South
Africa and Korea, hence, having one in Nigeria is a thing of the
future.
Yoon said that Nigeria’s population of 180 million was a
power for the future, a reason why Samsung wanted to be part of the
corporate citizenship.
He said that annually, the company spent
$16 billion globally on Research and Development (R&D), sold over
700 mobile phones every minute and over 41,000 every hour, globally.
