The new East Africa Nokia boss is impressed with Tanzania,
Mr. Bruce Howe, who was recently appointed said on Friday that he will spend
most of his time in Tanzania for its potential market spearhead by a very high
competition by the local operators.
Mr. Bruce Howe is the new general manager of Nokia in East
Africa. Mr. Howe said Tanzania being the second East Africa economy just behind
Kenya has an exciting market that Nokia will want to explore especially in the
youth.
He was quoted “I was recently appointed as the general
manager for this region – Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania and my office is in
Nairobi. However I will spend most of my time here. To tap the market potential
which is supported by the competition”,
Tanzania has seven mobile phone operators with about 25
million subscribers. The operators include Vodacom, Airtel , Tigo ,Zantel,
TTCL, Benson and SasaTel. Most of the mobile phone subscribers are youth who
have more activities than just calling and receiving calls on the phone. In
2015 the number of mobile phone subscribers in Tanzania is expected to hit 36.6
million users of mobile technologies.Nokia is currently advertising its new release Nokia Asha in the road posters in the most of the highways in Dar es Salaam.
In the battle of tariffs to boost the number of their
subscribers, the mobile services providers have increasingly provide more
services to the people even in remote areas the penetration rate is expected to grow more than 70
percent by 2015 according to the business monitor international report.
The Nokia boss asks the government to help them fight
against the counterfeiting phones which are widely available in the market
which tends to disrupt the mobile phone market. He said “ there is a big role the government
can play to ensure counterfeits are out of the market, It can be done by
educating consumers” he insisted by saying “ in Kenya fake phones are very
aggressively fought by the government “.
“as much as other companies are producing more smartphones ,
we are also affordable smart phone strategy” Howe’s answer on the perception
that Nokia is dying.