Emmanuel Ossai is the senior business manager of HMD Global West Africa, makers of Nokia range of devices. He spoke to chike onwuegbuchi on the recently launched devices and the on-going pre-order of Nokia 9 PureView in Nigeria.

Uniqueness of the recently launched Nokia Smartphones and their Market segments

HMD Global as a company is committed to manufacturing devices that meet different pain-points of our different consumers, and we do this by bringing on devices that are quite innovative. This has been our standard, since HMD Global was announced, especially with the very first launch at Mobile World Congress in 2017, with the introduction of Nokia 6.

Since then we have expanded our product portfolio which has seen the announcement you just talked about at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona two months ago. We have expanded our portfolio with four new devices; made up Nokia 1+, Nokia 3.2, Nokia 4.2 and our flagship device – Nokia 9 PureView, which we believe our consumers will find innovative and exciting. This is the only device in the world with five cameras; no other device as we speak today has that feature of five cameras.

The whole idea is that each of these devices should fit into different price and lifestyle segments, thus, attending to different needs of different consumers. For us, we produce devices for everybody, from our feature phones, up to our entry level phones where you have Nokia 1+ and to our mid-range devices which are Nokia 3.2 and Nokia 4.2.

One guarantee you have is that across these different segments, each of these devices has features that excite our consumers and meet their everyday needs because the idea is that people buy phones not to just use phone but to help them solve a problem. So, our devices are there to help provide solutions to everyday tasks and needs.

Whether it is entry level, mid-range or high, these devices come with Nokia craftsmanship people have known Nokia phones for, they come with very solid battery and then from Nokia 3 upwards, we have devices that are part of Android 1 and on each of these Android 1 devices, offers the best of Google experience. So, we pride ourselves in saying that our own brand of Android is pure, secured and up-to-date Android.

Availability in Nigeria of all new range of Nokia devices launched in Barcelona

We have direct distribution partners in 80 countries and our devices are sold in 180 countries around the world and Nigeria is a focus market for us. Nigeria is the biggest market in Africa from an economic perspective, absolutely there is no way we will want to launch a device that Nigeria will not be priority or a focus market. So, each of these devices is going to be available in Nigeria, in the next few weeks.

As we speak for the Nokia 9 PureView we have started pre-order. You can order for this device through our key partners such as Slot, Jumia, or Konga. All you need do is to visit Nokia.com and it will take you to each of these partners.

How the Pre-order is going

Even before the pre-order went live, we were getting very positive feedback from each of these our strategic partners, and immediately the device was announced consumers have been making inquiries about it.

Like I said earlier, this is a device that comes with the latest technology, a new innovation that you haven’t seen in any other smartphone. All you need to do is to go to the Jumia website, they already have the pre-order page up there. The same applies to Slot which is one of our strategic partners, and they have outlets around Nigeria. If you walk into any Slot outlet you can do your pre-order booking. You can equally do same on Konga.

So, in each of these strategic partners that I have mentioned all you need to do is walk into their office or go online and you will be directed to the page where you can make your pre-order. It has been quiet exciting so far.

About pure, secured and up to date Android

When we say that the Android version on our devices is pure, secure and up-to-date android, what we are saying is that it is the way Google originally designed Andriod to be, quite unlike what is seen across markets with different devices offering different Android versions.

The first level is when we say it is pure. It means it doesn’t have any extra skins on the device, so it is the way Google has designed Android. In essence, it is a purest form of Android from Google, so, it does not have any skins or extra layers on it.

What that does is that it helps you to maximize your battery capacity. What runs down your battery on any Android smartphone is that there are quite a number of preloaded Apps which the user might not need. With our pure, secure and  up-to-date Android, you have the opportunity to customize your screen the way you want your screen to be customized and because you don’t have extra layers or extra skins it means that your battery optimization will be at the highest.

When we say it is secure, part of being a member of Android 1 range of devices which offers you excellent Google services is the fact that you will get monthly security patches. One of the critical things about Android devices is that you get a lot of Malware threats. With us, you get monthly security updates which come straight from Google. That way your information is secured on your device, making it extremely difficult for anybody to try and crack into your phone.

When we say it is up-to-date; this for us is one of the very strongest points we try to emphasis. Once there is a new Android version, we get it first before competition. Most of our devices are already on Android Pie and with it comes a lot of new features which you will not see on other Android versions.

If you go into the market today quite a number of Android devices you see are still running on previous versions and not Pie.

In essence, when we say it’s pure, secure and up-to-date, it means you are having end-to-end the best of Google experience on your device.

Managing grey market in Nigeria

I said earlier that Nigeria is a big market, most populous black nation on earth and biggest population in Africa. That comes with the desire of everybody to do business in Nigeria whether it is from smartphone perspective or any other industry you can think about.

For us, the very first objective is to make sure that our products are available everywhere which was why I told you that we are working with 80 of our partners in 80 countries and our devices are activated in over 180 countries in the world.

There are grey markets in different industries, so our strategic goal is to continue to make our products available, because grey also filters in when you don’t make your products available. This we have ensured by selecting the right partners in Nigeria, end-to-end, so that at every point in time our devices are available for our consumers.

Part of what we also try to do is to provide warranty policy. For consumers who buy grey devices, it doesn’t come with warranty. We provide warranty for our devices which gives consumers the confidence in our products.

Distribution channels across Nigeria

There is no major city in Nigeria that we don’t have a partner directly or a partner that covers. For example, Slot is one of our major key distributor-retailers. Slot has about 65 retail outlets scatted all over the country. Konga, aside having an online platform also has physical stores across Nigeria, we also have quite a number of retailers and wholesalers that our distributors in Nigeria deal with directly and each of these people have different stores in different parts of Nigeria.

Each of our key distributors covers a large number of outlets in Nigeria, we also have people on ground from our own direct resources that interact with these retailers and they are scatted around Nigeria to ensure that our products are readily available to the consumer.

Support to dealers for effectively handling of after-sales service

The arrangement we already have in place is that when there is a product that is deficient, there are different levels through which you can solve that problem. Sometimes it might just be software update, in some of these stores that I have mentioned; we do have people on ground, quite a large army of field guys on ground who ensure that when a consumer comes in and if the problem is a software update, they fixed the problem at that point.

If it is a problem beyond that, then it has to go to our care centre, so, we do have a structure in place that addresses these after-sales service of our customers. Whether it is first level care issues or second level depending on the level that it is, we already have a system in place that addresses each of the different levels.

Competing with other cheaper smartphones

Competition is a way of life and it is actually meant to bring out the best in one. For us, the very first thing about us is to continue that known Nokia culture of craftsmanship. Whatever devices we produce meet the needs of consumers across the world. It will gladden you to know that in a short while when HMD Global came into existence as a company we are now global leader in feature phones.

In Nigeria, you will always have devices at different price points but for consumers who value good products, durability, and quality at competitive price, Nokia phones come to mind.

We have been known for many years for the durability of our products and we are going further by bringing in the pure, secure Android experience. We are also partnering with some of the best in the world, for instance, our Nokia 9 PureView comes with ZEISS technology, which is one of the very best camera technology firms in the world.

The whole idea is that we have different phones at different price points, so, you don’t deal with consumers the same way. A consumer that buys an entry level phone, for instance, can’t be dealt with the same way as one that wants to go for high-end device.

For us, the idea is to have different devices at different price points, so that you are giving consumers options.  We try to achieve this by ensuring that our devices are available across different channels, whether it is online or physical store. You have our devices available across the country. Our experience has shown that cheap doesn’t last but value lasts and people are settling for value.