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FAST MOVING ITEMS IN NIGERIA'S COMPUTER MARKET
SURVEY DATE: MARCH, 2004 Nigeria is regarded as an untapped
market with regard to ICT. But one of the unique features of
Nigeria’s ICT environment is its thriving computer market. It is
reputed to be the biggest and fastest growing in Africa. As we enter the third month of
2004, Jidaw.com has again reviewed activity in this exciting sector.
This brief excursion into the market focuses on fast moving computer
items. What’s hot. What’s not. In this market, fast movers include
hard disk drives, memory chips, UPS, CPU and printers.
Hard
Disk Drive The
most popular hard disk drives are those with capacities of 10gigabyte,
20 gigabyte and 40 gigabyte. 20
gigabyte is preferred by many because of the reasonable price/capacity
ratio, in view of the slight price preferential between the 10 and 20
gigabyte disks – about 800 Naira. The
two most popular brands are Seagate and Maxtor.
Over the years, Seagate has built a solid reputation in the
Nigerian market in view of its ruggedness with respect to power
fluctuation / instability in this environment.
However, Maxtor Quantum,
and Western Digital are all in
the race. Memory Chips - RAM
Popular
memory chip/sizes are 64mb, 128mb and 512MB .
128 MB is the most popular specification. In terms of type of
memory, SDRAM is more popular in Nigeria. However, DDRAM is beginning
to establish itself in the PC environment. Memory
chips are obviously required for new systems, but SDRAM’s popularity
is due to its wide application for memory upgrades in low budget
systems. Quite a few upgrade such systems with Pentium II and Pentium
III motherboards, which still exist in large numbers in Nigeria. There
is a lot of activity in the purchase of memory for individuals,
corporate organizations, business centres and cybercafes. The demand
for new PCs grows daily, and also rising is the need to upgrade
existing systems.
UPS
The
600 / 650 VA spec is the
fastest mover in the Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) scene.
The 650VA units produced by Bluegate sell faster than other
brands. Why? It’s simple. Price! A unit of Bluegate’s 650VA goes
for about 6,000 Naira, while 8,500 Naira is the selling price of its
nearest rival Mercury’s 650VA. But despite the fact that Bluegate is
the current champion, Mercury is nevertheless sought after by many,
due to the reputation and price/performance standard it has been able
to establish in this environment. CPU
Intel
CPUs are the most sought-after. AMD follows next.
Apart from Intel’s global reputation and promotion efforts,
Intel is preferred because it offers the socket and slot types of CPU,
while AMD’s CPUS are mostly of the socket type. What
this means is that more motherboards are available for Intel CPU
products in this market. Most of the demand for processors comes from
those building new systems. The Intel processor Pentium 4 1.8 GHZ MMX
is quite popular. Once more this appears to be due to the reasonable
price/performance ratio based on the slight price preferential,
between 1.7 GHZ MMX and 1.8 GHZ MMX processors. Printers
In
terms of printer sales, Hewlett Packard (HP) is miles ahead of the
competition in Nigeria. Canon is a distant second.
HP gains its popularity from the name it has built in Nigeria,
promotion and the availability of its product. For
the laser printers, HP’s 1000W (1100) and 1200 are the market
leaders. However many high volume users seem to demand models of
“Tokunbo” fairly used Laser printers such as 1100, IV, V and VI.
The high demand for fairly used laser printers is as a result of the
high pricing of new laser printers.
For example, a brand new 1000W goes for about 32,000 Naira,
while you can get a fairly used laser IV printer for about 15,000
Naira. With
the inkjet printers, HP’s Deskjet 3420 is sought after for low
volume printing carried out by business centres and individuals. While
HP’s Deskjet 1300 is used for jobs requiring heavy graphics and or
A3 paper size What’s Hot?
20
Gigabyte hard disk drive and 128 MB RAM are seen as the fastest movers
in this market. As mentioned earlier, affordability, capacity and
performance are he major drivers. Summary
You
should know that activity is high and growing in this sector. With
Nigeria’s size and population, it is no wonder it is Africa’s
fastest growing computer market. Recent rapid advances in
Telecommunications, increasing IT awareness (by business and
individuals) and Internet-driven business activities (Radio, VSAT,
Cybercafes, etc) in Nigeria have evidently assisted the market’s
growth. Increased
public Internet access through cybercafes plays a major role. The
phenomenal growth in the number of cybercafes increases the demand for
new computers, as well as the need to upgrade existing ones. There
is also greater demand for fairly used computers and parts.
The
growth in the market is there for all to see. Opportunities still
abound. And hopes are bright for sustainable development. We believe
all stakeholders should know this. We hope you find this report
useful. This report was produced by Femi Adefeso and Jide
Awe of Jidaw.com. You can contact them on e-mail: femi@jidaw.com or call 234-1-8958064, 4808445 You can also find Nigeria’s Computer Buyers guide with
price information on fast selling computer items on this link: A recently updated list of Computer Hardware Vendors in
Nigeria is also here: PRICE / MARKET INFORMATION POLICY Promote Your Business in Nigeria
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