Laptop sales shoot up as MTN extends market lead -- Nigeria MarketPlace

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Title: Laptop sales shoot up as MTN extends market lead

Time: 4/13/2009 9:29:41 AM

Mobile telephony penetration and the convergence of technologies are driving up sales of laptop computers in Nigeria’s formal sector desktops, according to International Data Corporation (IDC) sources.
IDC statistics accessed by BusinessDay at the weekend showed that 154,042 desktops were sold in the country’s formal market in 2007, while 77,966 laptops were sold in the same period.
According to figures from the same source however, the ratio narrowed in favour of laptops in 2008 with 211,499 desktops and 196,122 laptops sold in the country’s formal sector. Industry sources estimate however, that for every computer sold in the country’s formal sector, 15 are sold in the informal sector. That would indicate that about 2.9 million laptop and 3.1 million desktop computers were sold in the country’s informal sector last year.
Speaking exclusively to BusinessDay, IDC sources said desktop computer sales in Nigeria witnessed a negative growth of -4.3 percent in the last quarter of last year (October and December 2008).
Said our source: “A lot of people are shifting towards mobile Internet services and, percentage-wise, laptops are selling more than desktops. The price of laptops has fallen and it can be cheaper now to buy a laptop, than to buy a desktop.”
He added: “The reasons are mobility, Internet access, space and power. The laptop can be used at home and in the office, it can be used to access mobile Internet services which are now increasingly on offer from the telecom networks. It occupies less space in your home or office and it has a power pack which can keep it functioning for up to three hours, even when there is power outage from the grid.
“Zain, MTN, Glo Mobile, Starcomms and others are offering mobile Internet which you can move around with, on your laptop. The telecom companies are offering Internet services bundled with laptops.”
IDC sources observed however, that sales of computers in the country slowed down noticeably in the last quarter of last year, on account of the global economic meltdown.
Said our source: “Corporate organisations are still the biggest buyers of computers, with banks accounting for a good deal of the numbers. As the impact of the meltdown became more tangible, banks slowed down on computer purchases. Expansion of bank branches was not as aggressive. There was caution.”
In a related development, MTN, Africa’s largest mobile-phone operator, increased its market share to 40.5 percent at the end of December with 23.1 million customers, from 39 percent in September, according to recently released data from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).
Zain network’s share fell to 30.2 percent from 30.8 percent with 17.2 million users while Globacom’s market slipped to 28.1 percent in December with 16 million customers from 29.7 percent in September, the NCC data showed.
Nigeria is the fastest-growing telecommunications market on the continent. It has overtaken South Africa as the African country with the most phone users although many people carry multiple handsets because of less than optimum quality services rendered by the operators.