By Pascal Oparada
Social/Media
Chinese network gear makers and premier phone manufacturers, Huawei, is not finding it easy in Africa, especially in Nigeria, its biggest market in the continent as it struggles to catch up with other big players in the industry, TheNiche has learnt.
Following the withdrawal of its license by Google, owners of the Android Operating System, which Huawei previously used, have abandoned the brand as Android phones surge in popularity in Nigeria.
Findings reveal that the brand is lagging behind other lesser-known ones like Gionee, another Chinese-made phone.
Consumers’ search interest moved away from Huawei, which was the target of the U.S.-China tariff war this year, where big tech companies like Google, Apple, Amazon and Facebook immediately complied with the U.S. government and blacklisted the company.
Of the phones surveyed, Samsung phones remain the preferred mobile phone brand of choice with 75 per cent demand followed by its biggest rival, Apple’s iPhone with percentage demand of 72 and then Gionee with 17 per cent demand, while Huawei has one per cent in demand.
“This is not good for the brand,” Johnson Abebi, mobile phone dealer at the Ikeja Computer Village said.
“We have been finding it hard to sale the ones we have in stock but it’s difficult because users are aware that Google products would cease to work on the phones after a certain period,” Abebi said.
Abebi said he does not see the possibility of the sales of the phone picking up anytime soon because users are afraid they won’t get Google updates anymore.
In June this year, Huawei announced it was developing its own Operating System, following the U.S.-China tariff face-off.
Because of the ban, Huawei turned to Africa after it was blacklisted by the U.S. government, but the sales of the company’s mobile phones continue to flounder.
Recently, it announced the upcoming release of its first 5G phone handset in its home market, China.