The Nigerian Telecommunications Commission yesterday has raised an alarm over the huge number of substandard phones being imported into Nigeria as the country has become a dumping ground for fake smartphones.
The Nigerian Telecommunications Commission yesterday, 10th of September disclosed that about 250 million substandard phones were sold annually in the country. This information was contained in a statement made by the acting Executive Vice Chairman of the Commission, Prof. Umar Danbatta at the stake holders meeting on ‘Combating Counterfeit and Substandard ICT Devices Programme' in Abuja. This has caused an adverse impact on the economy of the country.
Specifically, he lamented the damaging effects of the products on a broad spectrum of the national life, saying that the ugly development poses grave danger to the health, safety and privacy of buyers and the nation’s environment.
He said, "counterfeiting is a growing economic problem affecting a wide range of products in the ICT sector, mobile phones are especially targeted with some 250 million counterfeits sold annually. This number constitutes about 15% to 20% of the global mobile phone market.
“Apart from the obvious negative economic impact of this ugly trend on the manufacturers of genuine products, government, authorized dealers which include brand evaluation, loss of revenue, copyright and trademark infringement, unfair competition, loss of tax, cost of compliance with applicable national legislation, national security and loss of employment opportunities."
“This menace also poses danger to the health and safety of consumers equally breaching the privacy of consumers. Collective efforts is urgently needed to curtail counterfeiting in ICT,” Danbatta added.