The trio of Samsung Electronics officials, including the
Director, Hand Held Products, Emmanouil Revmatas (left); Vice President
and Chief Operating Officer, South Africa, George Ferreira and CE, EBT
and IT of West Africa, Sunil Kumar, spoke to Nigerian Journalists in
Malaga, Spain, at the just concluded Samsung Africa Forum 2014.
According to them, increasing consumers’ preference is behind the
convergence of IT and mobility. They also spoke on other germane
industry issues.
THE new Samsung UHD curved television, when is this going to be available in Nigeria?
The Ultra High Definition television will be available in Nigeria by June. Just before the World Cup begins in Brazil, it will enter the market. The UHD product is just coming to the market, it may not be pocket friendly at the beginning, but gradually, it will. It belongs to certain market segment.
About four years ago when the LED TVs came out, it wasn’t affordable, but today, almost everybody can buy it. That is the way technology works. It may not be affordable today, but subsequently in the future, it will.
The tab unveiled also differs from what we have in Nigeria presently. But if you look at some of the trends taken place between IT and mobility, there has been a lot of convergence. Consumers, whether in Nigeria or other parts of the world want devices or electronics that is portable and allows them to do many things at a go. They want a device that will allow them do so many things, whether as a professional or otherwise.
Samsung is out to enable this. The device unveiled is targeted at professionals, but consumers have embraced virtually all the inches we have introduced from seven, nine and 10 and now 12. This is a device that offers completely different user interphase, enables you to do so many things at a go.
Looking at these products unveiled, what is your target for the next 12 months?
Our innovation targets every strata of the society. We don’t just make products for just one segment of the community. Some of the innovations are high end, but that does not mean the low end products are not meeting needs as well.
For example, the Flat screen TVs are targeted at the mass market, because they are affordable.
Samsung’s strategy is to drive growth year-on-year and become market leader. In Nigeria, for instance, the trends are evolving. If you noticed, what you saw last two, three years and 10 years ago, there has been an improvement on them. In many ways, our businesses are been remodeled to fit into what people wanted. Nigeria is emerging and the market is exciting, so we are also trying as much as possible to meet the demands of every segment of the market.
In terms of mobile, we have feature phones for as low as N12, 500 and S3 goes for as high as N105, 000 and of course there are several products in between these two sets.
Our target this year is to gain insight into each segment of the market. It is this insight that will make us provide products that will meet individual needs. From the insight we have gained, the youths are strategic, not only in Nigeria, but globally. Also not only in the mobile, even in electronics segment.
From the different display of your products, which cuts across IT, mobility and electronics, what is the future of technology globally?
From the beginning, every body talks about ubiquitous technology, anyway, time and where. What we are doing at Samsung is to drive that principle.
Ubiquitous technology is simply allowing all the devices to connect to the Internet and drive our professional and domestic lives. The fact remains that we shall continue to look and explore every opportunity that comes our way to improve lives through technology.
I was telling some people some time ago that between 1850 and 1950, Alexander Graham Bell developed the telephone, 100 years nothing changed. But from 1950 to 2000 and to today, there have been a lot of development and changes. And I think we at Samsung have been part of those propelling the changes.
However, as time goes on, we are looking at the concept of smart home, which is already in Nigeria with the introduction of home sync. A middle class family in Nigeria can have smart TV, tablets, camera, phones and connect seamlessly.
The future is to be able to stream things live from one destination to another without challenges, making it simple, affordable and available; this is where technology is headed.
Samsung is looking at taking its digital village project to all part of Africa. What will be the impact of the infrastructure gap in Nigeria and others on it?
Some elements of the Digital Village already exist in Nigeria. I mean, we have invested in the Samsung Engineering Academy. We also have projects like that in Ekiti, where we look at exploring solar technology to bridge some developmental gaps.
We are also talking to more NGOs; organizations, which we think can understand the process better. But you need to know that government, and other authorities must be involved. We have started the process but we hope to increase our engagement.
The fact remains that we are very committed to the Nigerian market. Consumers here have been very great. I can’t put a date to full deployment because so many things are involved, but we believe that as we continue in the campaign something will happen.
The fact about using it, is to drive value, reason it is important to get all necessary stakeholders involved in the push. It is very easy to deploy, but you need to get the buying of all necessary stakeholders for it to be successful. It is a work in progress.
How strategic is Nigeria’s market to Samsung and how has it respond?
Nigeria remains very strategic to Samsung in Africa and will continue to be. The driving force behind Samsung has been to meet peoples’ need and we hope to continue in this form. For example, in Nigeria when we unveiled the Galaxy Grand, we realized that the people likes touch, Smartphone and large screen and they also need something that is very friendly to the pocket. The Galaxy Grand fit into this and it has been successful.
Besides, if you look at the current tends in the world, people want to be connected faster, share information faster among others, and so with that in mind, you need to develop technology that could meet such traffic.
So if you look at innovation today, it has followed that trend and it will continue. As the need gets bigger in Africa, we shall make more investments.
Examining the consumer base of Africa, 50 per cent of them are in the youth category, around the age of 25 years, so we know the needs of the youths. They want to be connected at the go, share information faster, so they are the one driving changes and Nigeria is no different. Technology innovation will not only come in hardware but also software. All that is needed is to keep up with the trends of things. The fact remains that it is the consumer that are driving the innovation. The African consumers have become highly informed, well travelled so they demand the very best in Africa and other part of the world.
How do you handle counterfeit challenges, especially on your mobile products?
I will be hesitant to give figure as per the Nigerian market, because there are lots of reports on that. However, there are significant grey and fake markets in Nigeria. So we have two challenges to face. We have been very active in engaging and educating our consumers on simple things they can do to basically differentiate between a genuine Samsung products imported into Nigeria and the fake products peddled around.
For instance, if you enter Computer Village today to buy say our Samsung S4 for N35, 000 that is a complete fake. Though, that may not damage our product directly, but may impact our credibility when such product failed to do what the original does.
Already, like others, we have also engaged the govt and regulators on how we can clean up the market. As you know all our products passes through the type- approved system of the Nigerian Communications Commisison. So we need to protect our investment in Nigeria against counterfeits.
However, the most important thing is actually on how we inform our consumers. So what we do is to differentiate ourselves completely from the grey market by educating our vendors and consumers on such dangers. So we are tackling the challenge from several angles, while we still seek support of relevant authorities to mitigate it.
Our main objective as company is to partner with the relevant authorities to get this menace tackled in countries that we operate. We do this by also educating our vendors, partners, and dealers.
Secondly, we ensure that our products come through the right direction and that the value proposition they come with, for instance the 24 months warranty should be met and given to them. It is the authority that can really fight such and ours is to work with them to get this done.
Looking at the volume of market in Africa, especially Samsung’s success in Nigeria, won’t it be wise for Samsung to situate a manufacturing plant in Nigeria, which will also boost local content drive?
At Samsung, we take great pride that we are always looking for opportunities across the globe. This we shall continue. In Nigeria and other regions in Africa, we will look at more opportunities that come our way and look at the possibility of establishing a manufacturing plant say in the future. For now, we are stuck into research of more consumer satisfying products.
In Nigeria, have you ever encountered challenges in bringing your products, solutions and services to the country?
I don’t think we have had any challenge in that regards. We are law abiding by following strictly what the law says in everywhere we do business. As we speak, no particular challenge either with government or any agency.
What is Samsung eWaste strategy?
As a very responsible organisation globally, this has been one of our key focus and concern. Though, I wouldn’t specify what has been happening in Nigeria in that regards. We await regulation from the authority. Whenever there is anything coming from government, we will embrace it.
Can’t Samsung champion this course?
For example, on the migration of analogue to digital transmission, this is something we are trying to engage the government about awareness creation because as of now, there has just been an announcement by the NBC on switching to digital by June 2015. But it is not as simple as that and these are the things that the stakeholders need to be engaged with. .
The coast is still not crystal clear on how to go about that by the relevant authorities, however, there is need for more awareness because transition is bigger than the way we are looking at it.
Lets look at it from this perspective, what are those things critical to our migration from analogue to digital?
First and foremost, there is an ECOWAS specification as to how to migrate, the kind of frequencies we need to move to among others.
If this process must to start July 1, 2015, we are not prepared for it at the moment. By now, the testing should have been done and go ahead should have been given to Manufacturers on products. What we understand now is that they want to ban the importation of second hand television sets from Nigeria from July 1. By now there should have been several activities around that, but nothing seems to be happening.
The only news now is that there will be ban on second hand TVs, there are other things that must happen before the 2015 timelight.
There is need to be proactive about this process. What happens to those who have analogue television sets, how do they get setup boxes and others, we need to look into that now. We are not looking at setup boxes as opportunities for us now.
Has Samsung any trade-in-facilities for consumers?
We did an exchange programmes for air-condition last year. These are issues are in-country specific.
Is there any market opportunity for Samsung in Nigeria’s broadband drive?
At this moment, I can’t say specifically. But we may develop products that would work on that. We are not drivers of broadband in Africa. It is the operators. But what we will do is to create technology around that.
THE new Samsung UHD curved television, when is this going to be available in Nigeria?
The Ultra High Definition television will be available in Nigeria by June. Just before the World Cup begins in Brazil, it will enter the market. The UHD product is just coming to the market, it may not be pocket friendly at the beginning, but gradually, it will. It belongs to certain market segment.
About four years ago when the LED TVs came out, it wasn’t affordable, but today, almost everybody can buy it. That is the way technology works. It may not be affordable today, but subsequently in the future, it will.
The tab unveiled also differs from what we have in Nigeria presently. But if you look at some of the trends taken place between IT and mobility, there has been a lot of convergence. Consumers, whether in Nigeria or other parts of the world want devices or electronics that is portable and allows them to do many things at a go. They want a device that will allow them do so many things, whether as a professional or otherwise.
Samsung is out to enable this. The device unveiled is targeted at professionals, but consumers have embraced virtually all the inches we have introduced from seven, nine and 10 and now 12. This is a device that offers completely different user interphase, enables you to do so many things at a go.
Looking at these products unveiled, what is your target for the next 12 months?
Our innovation targets every strata of the society. We don’t just make products for just one segment of the community. Some of the innovations are high end, but that does not mean the low end products are not meeting needs as well.
For example, the Flat screen TVs are targeted at the mass market, because they are affordable.
Samsung’s strategy is to drive growth year-on-year and become market leader. In Nigeria, for instance, the trends are evolving. If you noticed, what you saw last two, three years and 10 years ago, there has been an improvement on them. In many ways, our businesses are been remodeled to fit into what people wanted. Nigeria is emerging and the market is exciting, so we are also trying as much as possible to meet the demands of every segment of the market.
In terms of mobile, we have feature phones for as low as N12, 500 and S3 goes for as high as N105, 000 and of course there are several products in between these two sets.
Our target this year is to gain insight into each segment of the market. It is this insight that will make us provide products that will meet individual needs. From the insight we have gained, the youths are strategic, not only in Nigeria, but globally. Also not only in the mobile, even in electronics segment.
From the different display of your products, which cuts across IT, mobility and electronics, what is the future of technology globally?
From the beginning, every body talks about ubiquitous technology, anyway, time and where. What we are doing at Samsung is to drive that principle.
Ubiquitous technology is simply allowing all the devices to connect to the Internet and drive our professional and domestic lives. The fact remains that we shall continue to look and explore every opportunity that comes our way to improve lives through technology.
I was telling some people some time ago that between 1850 and 1950, Alexander Graham Bell developed the telephone, 100 years nothing changed. But from 1950 to 2000 and to today, there have been a lot of development and changes. And I think we at Samsung have been part of those propelling the changes.
However, as time goes on, we are looking at the concept of smart home, which is already in Nigeria with the introduction of home sync. A middle class family in Nigeria can have smart TV, tablets, camera, phones and connect seamlessly.
The future is to be able to stream things live from one destination to another without challenges, making it simple, affordable and available; this is where technology is headed.
Samsung is looking at taking its digital village project to all part of Africa. What will be the impact of the infrastructure gap in Nigeria and others on it?
Some elements of the Digital Village already exist in Nigeria. I mean, we have invested in the Samsung Engineering Academy. We also have projects like that in Ekiti, where we look at exploring solar technology to bridge some developmental gaps.
We are also talking to more NGOs; organizations, which we think can understand the process better. But you need to know that government, and other authorities must be involved. We have started the process but we hope to increase our engagement.
The fact remains that we are very committed to the Nigerian market. Consumers here have been very great. I can’t put a date to full deployment because so many things are involved, but we believe that as we continue in the campaign something will happen.
The fact about using it, is to drive value, reason it is important to get all necessary stakeholders involved in the push. It is very easy to deploy, but you need to get the buying of all necessary stakeholders for it to be successful. It is a work in progress.
How strategic is Nigeria’s market to Samsung and how has it respond?
Nigeria remains very strategic to Samsung in Africa and will continue to be. The driving force behind Samsung has been to meet peoples’ need and we hope to continue in this form. For example, in Nigeria when we unveiled the Galaxy Grand, we realized that the people likes touch, Smartphone and large screen and they also need something that is very friendly to the pocket. The Galaxy Grand fit into this and it has been successful.
Besides, if you look at the current tends in the world, people want to be connected faster, share information faster among others, and so with that in mind, you need to develop technology that could meet such traffic.
So if you look at innovation today, it has followed that trend and it will continue. As the need gets bigger in Africa, we shall make more investments.
Examining the consumer base of Africa, 50 per cent of them are in the youth category, around the age of 25 years, so we know the needs of the youths. They want to be connected at the go, share information faster, so they are the one driving changes and Nigeria is no different. Technology innovation will not only come in hardware but also software. All that is needed is to keep up with the trends of things. The fact remains that it is the consumer that are driving the innovation. The African consumers have become highly informed, well travelled so they demand the very best in Africa and other part of the world.
How do you handle counterfeit challenges, especially on your mobile products?
I will be hesitant to give figure as per the Nigerian market, because there are lots of reports on that. However, there are significant grey and fake markets in Nigeria. So we have two challenges to face. We have been very active in engaging and educating our consumers on simple things they can do to basically differentiate between a genuine Samsung products imported into Nigeria and the fake products peddled around.
For instance, if you enter Computer Village today to buy say our Samsung S4 for N35, 000 that is a complete fake. Though, that may not damage our product directly, but may impact our credibility when such product failed to do what the original does.
Already, like others, we have also engaged the govt and regulators on how we can clean up the market. As you know all our products passes through the type- approved system of the Nigerian Communications Commisison. So we need to protect our investment in Nigeria against counterfeits.
However, the most important thing is actually on how we inform our consumers. So what we do is to differentiate ourselves completely from the grey market by educating our vendors and consumers on such dangers. So we are tackling the challenge from several angles, while we still seek support of relevant authorities to mitigate it.
Our main objective as company is to partner with the relevant authorities to get this menace tackled in countries that we operate. We do this by also educating our vendors, partners, and dealers.
Secondly, we ensure that our products come through the right direction and that the value proposition they come with, for instance the 24 months warranty should be met and given to them. It is the authority that can really fight such and ours is to work with them to get this done.
Looking at the volume of market in Africa, especially Samsung’s success in Nigeria, won’t it be wise for Samsung to situate a manufacturing plant in Nigeria, which will also boost local content drive?
At Samsung, we take great pride that we are always looking for opportunities across the globe. This we shall continue. In Nigeria and other regions in Africa, we will look at more opportunities that come our way and look at the possibility of establishing a manufacturing plant say in the future. For now, we are stuck into research of more consumer satisfying products.
In Nigeria, have you ever encountered challenges in bringing your products, solutions and services to the country?
I don’t think we have had any challenge in that regards. We are law abiding by following strictly what the law says in everywhere we do business. As we speak, no particular challenge either with government or any agency.
What is Samsung eWaste strategy?
As a very responsible organisation globally, this has been one of our key focus and concern. Though, I wouldn’t specify what has been happening in Nigeria in that regards. We await regulation from the authority. Whenever there is anything coming from government, we will embrace it.
Can’t Samsung champion this course?
For example, on the migration of analogue to digital transmission, this is something we are trying to engage the government about awareness creation because as of now, there has just been an announcement by the NBC on switching to digital by June 2015. But it is not as simple as that and these are the things that the stakeholders need to be engaged with. .
The coast is still not crystal clear on how to go about that by the relevant authorities, however, there is need for more awareness because transition is bigger than the way we are looking at it.
Lets look at it from this perspective, what are those things critical to our migration from analogue to digital?
First and foremost, there is an ECOWAS specification as to how to migrate, the kind of frequencies we need to move to among others.
If this process must to start July 1, 2015, we are not prepared for it at the moment. By now, the testing should have been done and go ahead should have been given to Manufacturers on products. What we understand now is that they want to ban the importation of second hand television sets from Nigeria from July 1. By now there should have been several activities around that, but nothing seems to be happening.
The only news now is that there will be ban on second hand TVs, there are other things that must happen before the 2015 timelight.
There is need to be proactive about this process. What happens to those who have analogue television sets, how do they get setup boxes and others, we need to look into that now. We are not looking at setup boxes as opportunities for us now.
Has Samsung any trade-in-facilities for consumers?
We did an exchange programmes for air-condition last year. These are issues are in-country specific.
Is there any market opportunity for Samsung in Nigeria’s broadband drive?
At this moment, I can’t say specifically. But we may develop products that would work on that. We are not drivers of broadband in Africa. It is the operators. But what we will do is to create technology around that.