Toshiba blames bad economy for exiting market

Japanese firm, Toshiba, which left the Nigerian economy over three years ago, has blamed the dwindling fortunes of the economy for its decision.

Now, planning a return to the country, the Regional Sales Manager, Africa market, Toshiba, Sanjay Alex, who hinted on this, said the firm would be focusing on storage devices and solutions, “because of high demand.”

Alex said a research has revealed that the world will require about 1666 billion of zettabyte storage by 2025.

He stated that the new focus was on a broad range of proven storage solutions for private and professional use, which could be seamlessly integrated into daily life.

Addressing the channel distributors in Lagos, he said the recent recession in the country contributed to poor visibility of its products in the market.

“In 2015 we were very active in Nigeria market with our technology distribution but due to the socio-economic and political situation coupled with currency devaluation many of the companies started going back and we also stop for a temporary time. We are back because the socio-economic situation is getting better and Nigeria is becoming stable with no more issues”.

Alex noted that the firm invests approximately 5.6 per cent of its total turn over on research development in a bid to create unique technology for the customer and create a unique brand. He stated that one sure way by which it protects customers from grey market is by ensuring that products come with serial numbers stressing that to some extent, the firm has been able to checkmate the act of faking its products.

“Storage solutions are global product that doesn’t require customization before the people accept the product and Nigeria market situation is very similar to that of the international market. The mentality of the people here is toward elite products and price conscious market and our products are very affordable.

We will be fine-tuning our market inline with market reality”, he said.

The Country Manager for Toshiba, Anthony Ifejika, disclosed that the company has finalised arrangements to work with its channel sales outlets across the country to deepen operation in the market.

“We have decided to come back to Nigeria to re-launch the brand and take it to the next level. We plan to create enabling environment so that people will feel the existence of the product in terms of quality and pricing. Our focus now is on the components of the technology market; the hard drive, micro SD cards, and flash drive.

“The potentials for growth are here because people need a lot of memory to store documents, pictures and music and messages. The quality is always in the product. We plan billions of naira investment in the Nigeria’s market as the most vibrant and key market in Africa region”, he said.