Tecno about to Open A Manufacturing Plant in Nigeria

The firm said it has secured a large expanse of land in one of the choicest areas of Lagos. According to Attai Oguche Tecno Deputy Manager, said the firm is committed to the Nigerian market, hence the need to site a manufacturing plant in the country.

“Tecno has its first African manufacturing plant in Ethiopia, the firm has established presence in 48 territories, “Nigeria, Kenya and Tanzania respectively remain the biggest market on the continent for the phone company.”

Before now, tecno established a manufacturing plant in Ethiopia. Speaking on this, at that time, Tecno vice president, Arif Chowdhury said, “we are proud to say that some of the Tecno phones are already ‘made in Africa’. We started a plant in Addis Ababa two year ago and it is doing well so far. We chose Ethiopia because it is unique, looking at it from a strategic point of view.

Arif Chowdhury, vice president, Tecno group ltd

We found Ethiopia’s duty structure to be more attractive. We eventually plan to move our entire production to Africa since this is the only market we serve. We will start with establishing manufacturing plants in Kenya and Nigeria. This will depend highly on a lot of factors like the customs structure and government support we receive.

I guess they are about to keep their word and Africans – mainly Nigerians – should be looking forward to a ‘made in Nigeria’ tecno phone. I can only imagine the boost this singular act by techno mobile would give the economy.

I think tecno recognises that Africa remains the fastest growing market in the world. For the countries that are past 100% penetration, there is still a market for phone replacement. Most countries are, however, still behind in terms of penetration and therefore new subscribers are expected there. The African market is still huge, and it will be so for the next couple of years.

Tecno’s African business portfolio has been growing rapidly over the past few years, with Nigeria accounting for more than 80 percent of the company’ sales in Africa while Kenya and Ghana comes very distant second and third in that order, a situation many believe would have influenced the company’s choice of where to set up its African Assembly plant. And it did!

Recall that tecno once dumped the plan of establishing a plant in Nigeria because of ‘security challenges’. This was why Ethiopia was chosen ahead of Nigeria in the first place. Well, as much as we would hate to say it, all thanks to the present administration for reducing the ‘challenges’.

Brace up guys! ‘Made in Nigeria’ phones are coming.