TECNO Sues for Dialogue As Brand War Gets Underway At Computer Village

While the market for mobile phone continues to grow in geometric
progression in Nigeria where the demand is so high, there appears to be fresh battle for market supremacy among Original Equipment Manufacturers, (OEMs) .
Just recently, the Mobile Phone Dealers Association of Nigeria had some grey areas in their business relationship with TECNO Mobiles. However, the phone dealers had alleged that the TECNO brand which is already the toast of many
Nigerians was scheming to corner a greater percentage of the market share.
The phone dealers have also alleged that TECNO was behind a recent action by the Standards Organization of Nigeria (SON), where several substandard and
unapproved mobile phones were discovered and confiscated from the market.
The phone dealers it was gathered, had demanded that the Chief Executive Officer of TECNO should come to Nigeria to address them one on one.
This development, it was further gathered had led to the pulling down some banners and bill boards proclaiming the Tecno brand in the Computer Village
by the phone dealers who also alleged that their profit margins from Tecno has dropped. With this development, TECNO Mobile, has called for dialogue to address the
current market misunderstanding between it and phone dealers in the
Computer Village Market in Ikeja, Lagos.
Reacting to the development, the Public Relations Manager, Marketing
Department, TECNO telecom Limited in an email to Vanguard Hi-Tech said that
the allegations were not true.
"Tecno products are good quality products, we don't have any problem with
the SON, just with competitors who are launching many rumors on Tecno to
break our brand image" he explained.
However, TECNO is suing for peace, calling for a meeting with officials of the
association where all the issues would be tabled, discussed and settled
amicably. Accordingly, the phone maker has asked officials of the association
to bury their hatchet and make themselves available for discussion.
But market watchers have reasoned that the current posture of phone dealers
may have been masterminded by a competing brand in the market as a result
of current struggle for market supremacy among all kinds of brands which
may not have been type-approved by the Nigerian Communications
Commission, NCC.