Clearly you don't know how the media works. The publication is a sponsored one, not the award. TECNO won an award, and they're happy to let the world know they did by publishing a story on a news site. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

You're probably here just to smear and discredit the brand out of hatred or perhaps you're working for a competing brand. Else your question/comment should have been out of curiosity and not attack.

And Yes TECNO has done for Nigeria and Africa as a whole, what your Samsung, Nokia and Apple wouldn't & couldn't do, and that is getting more Africans connected and progressive. Millions of Nigerians owned their first smartphone thanks to TECNO. I'm sure someone in your circle of family and friends has a TECNO phone, that's if you're not sending this hate post from one.

That your faves are global brands doesn't mean they have made much impact on Africa. TECNO has. Understand this, live with it and have peace.

If e easy, make your faves do am.

I come in peace.

Bodmum:
Hahahaha, this is joke right? Who are the organizers? How many brands do Tecno contested with or what sort of nonsense is this? Oh.... Sponsored.

The Age of the Start-ups: The familiar Path of Companies that have Failed the Test of Time in the Nigerian Market

Africa, specifically Nigeria has become a center of attraction for both tech investors and new tech businesses. There has been significant growth with respect to investment and business development in the country, and this cuts across all areas of the Nigerian economy; E-commerce, mobile technology, fintech startups among others.

Despite the many possibilities and potentials in the Nigerian market, not so many new businesses are able to scale through the fundamental stage, and as such are either forced to relocate or perhaps fold up if they don ’t end up been purchased by a third party company.

Some of the companies of the internet era that have failed the test of time in Nigeria at the fundamental stage include a couple of prominent businesses and/or brands who came in with bold statements such as OLX (classified forum), Efritin, Fero, Wiko, Wechat, Tambo Mobile, Easy Taxi, among several others.

While some of these businesses were able to scale through for years before going pear-shaped, others could barely scale through beyond a year. It’s interesting to note that many of these businesses share similar key issues that led to their respective failures, including a lack of proper research before entering the market, spending investor funds and never hitting the profitability mark, misappropriation of resources, lack of employee confidence, etc.

Sadly, a couple of existing Start-ups with seemingly great potential are still towing this familiar path to failure. This article aims to look at some of these businesses, past and existent, and shed light on key issues leading to their eventual failure.


Efritin
Owned by Swedish company-- Saltside Technologies, Efritin officially launched as a classified advertisement website in Nigeria back in August 2015, however, could not scale past the second year of establishment in the country due to many reasons, with mismanagement of funds and high cost of data being the most prominent.

According to the CEO, Nils Hammar, Efritin had suffered greatly from the lack of excellent internet penetration and adoption. Nils also emphasized on how the high cost of data, as well as the unfavorable economic condition during that time, had impacted negatively on the business.“We have a long list of KPIs to evaluate how things are performing. Compared to other markets, we didn’t see the same progress in Nigeria” Nils told the media.

“I think the data cost in Nigeria is very high. In comparison to other parts of West Africa, Africa and the rest of the world, it is very expensive to use the internet for the vast majority of the people. It is very difficult for e-commerce and classifieds because they are quite late in the evolution of the internet industry,” Nils added.

With no much doubt, Efritin’s exit from the Nigerian market points to the fact that their business strives in Nigeria was a non-profitable one.

While Nils’ reasons for the closure are justifiable, insiders also have it that the main reasons for the company’s inability to survive in Nigeria are majorly as a result of funds mismanagement. Recall back to 2016, Efritin former MD, Zakaria Hersi was accused of stealing thousands of dollars, while turning a blind eye to the internal crises that played a major role in their demise, especially as they were not able to raise more funding to scale the business any further.

Another key issue would be a lack of proper market survey, considering that other online classified platforms like OLX were not doing fantastically great as at the time of establishment in Nigeria.


Easy Taxi
Easy Taxi is another business/startup that failed at the point of debut in Nigeria, or better still let me say could not survive the test of time. Following the reception of a seed-funding valued at $10 million, the ride-hailing service which started off in Brazil back in 2011 expanded to Africa among other regions, launching in Nigeria sometime in 2013 and commencing operations in Abuja.3 years down the line, however, the company hit the halt button and exited Nigeria.

Easy Taxi Nigeria is a subsidiary of Africa Internet Group who had the likes of Rocket Internet, MTN, Millicom, among others as Shareholders. It was hard to believe they wouldn’t survive the Nigerian economy for that long given all the major stakes in the business, however, as with most businesses that have failed in the past, Easy Taxi was not immune to the harsh realities of market penetration in a challenging market as Nigeria’s, hence its exit.

As for the reasons for their failure in Nigeria, it is still very unclear as all effort to lay hands on actual information has been to no avail. For the obvious, Easy Taxi had to struggle with proper penetration into the Nigerian market.


OPay
Talking about OPay, the story is a bit different as it is not a case of exiting the country. Instead, the fintech and multi-service company has been struggling with profitability since it arrived in Lagos, Nigeria back in August 2018. Here, there are several key issues that may lead to a bad ending for the Chinese company if care is not properly taken.

One of those many key concerns about OPay’s business in Nigeria is the over-reliance on financing to become profitable. While it is not news that Africa, and Nigeria as a whole, has become a focal point for foreign investors, OPay has keyed itself into the enormous opportunity therein, investing millions of dollars to pivot its multi-service platform which hasn’t quite worked as some industry observers had expected, thus becoming clearer that the business model is not sustainable as it currently is, and perhaps requires an overhauling.

As much as funding for a startup is very vital, working with a viable business model is as important. Sometimes, it is not all about spending money; a sustainable strategy sometimes cost less spending. It is even worse when a startup such as OPay fails to gather (despite having a reasonable funding) the required expertise and knowledge to run the business, especially in this part of Africa where you have to go the extra mile to achieve significant success.

OPay’s services include ORide, OTrike, OFood, OLoan, OCar and its recently launched phone brand – Olla, among others. Here, it is obvious that a lot of activities are taking place simultaneously, however, how many of them are properly been managed? How many of the businesses are properly been accounted for by their respective management teams?

The Chinese company’s inability to turn a profit yet could also be blamed on external stakeholder impact – the Lagos state government-implemented policies that have impacted a vital operation of OPay negatively.

In a recent development, the state government placed a ban on the use of motorcycles on major roads within the state, and as a result, OPay has had to shut down its bikes operation not only in Lagos State but also in other states where its bike operation is functional, including Kwara State. The OPay bike-hailing service was meant to be the goose to lay the golden egg, but that wouldn’t quite happen now. As with Gokada, Max NG and other bike hailing businesses hit by the ban, it is a pointer to the little or no engagement of stakeholders and policymakers in their operational environment.

An insider whose name will be withheld for privacy reasons shared an insight on what the internal management looks like, and just like the rumors that have been making rounds on the internet, it wasn’t a fantastic one. According to her, the company had employed a lot of resourceful talents, wooing them with juicy benefits. Fast forward to date, the company has been lading a lot of slash on employees’ salaries, while asking many others to leave, including their Chinese expatriates.

There have also been accusations of falsifying numbers by creating hundreds of thousands of fake orders, intended to notch higher their app’s active user figures, possibly in a bit to impress investors.

Olla Mobile, OPay’s latest venture into the mobile business, hasn’t particularly caught much attention, as the new phone brand has recorded nearly zero sales in over 80% of about 60 stores they are present in. That’s also asides the fact that the devices are of low quality, forcing a lot of phone dealers to quit doing business with them.

In all, these beg the question: Could these issues faced by dying startups solely be attributed to the harsh realities of doing business in Nigeria? The concerns raised in this piece are a resultant effect of poor management, a lack of a solid business blueprint, and a clear indication of another startup heading south unless a thorough overhaul of the business is done.

ipobarecriminals:
Useless. product

See this one. Go and make your own product nah let's see. #Sighs

Sorry about your predicament bro. We do understand how a good number of unqualified customer care agents fill up these job positions without proper character check and training by the employers. This is common in Nigeria, more so in even multinationals - banks and even hotels and telecoms (because you cant see those ones, they have this silent way of been hostile to customers )

I believe at the time the agent at carl care was hostile you'd have insisted on seeing the manager. This way, the agent can be queried.
On the issue of the tablet been collected, its really a peculiar case. Its easier for them to tell the customer away and not offering any reasonable help, while forgetting they work for a brand who is summarily in the business of ensuring customers are happy. Someone should be queried for this lapse and if need be, even lose their job to serve as a deterrent for future occurrences. Anything could have happened to the device. Too many things go on behind the scenes of every company and go unnoticed. Someone may have taken it, seeing that it had stayed a long time and no one came to pick it up; anything else could have happened.

Carl care is growing to be a respectable brand in the country, its important that they deal with this case so they can save their name from been smeared by unfortunate events such as this. Hopefully your case will be settled.

On a lighter note, phone business is a profitable one oo, especially with the rate Tecno phones are selling. You couldn't have stopped good business because of one unfortunate incident nah . Business is about interest man, you need to set aside emotions from business. Just saying bro I really wish you luck in sorting this out.

.

Its btwn 40-41k. Dollar is doing us plenty things oo. This phone should have ordinarily been under 30k

400billionman:


10k

e go shock u oo. Go check dem tomorrow if u now dem.

danjumakolo:
Funnily all the invited guests like the mc,chairman and even the reps will not use the phone as dia daily driver

Like iPhones dont look the same, or any other OS for that matter

JoaHynppes:
People wasting their hard earn money on android phones
....these shits all look the same,...

That instagram page isn't beyonce's. There is ALWAYS a blue tick on verified official pages of popular personalities. Even Twitter does it.

morganacanta:

That's beyonce where is the blue ink...isn't she verified ?
And zuckerberg can't be on instagram since he owns Facebook that's like promoting his rival ...stop with the lies biko !

That instagram page you put up isn't beyonce's. There is ALWAYS a blue tick on verified official pages of popular personalities. Even Twitter does it.

morganacanta:

That's beyonce where is the blue ink...isn't she verified ?
And zuckerberg can't be on instagram since he owns Facebook that's like promoting his rival ...stop with the lies biko !

Facebook owns Instagram, they're not rivals...at least not to Zuckerberg!

morganacanta:

That's beyonce where is the blue ink...isn't she verified ?
And zuckerberg can't be on instagram since he owns Facebook that's like promoting his rival ...stop with the lies biko !

I think Seun should install a double like button

Borwe:
Remember the days when Samsung used to be a chinko duck

And that's how this "Chinko duck" will continue to grow and be better, outdo themselves all the time and continue to stay on top in Nigeria! Stay there ooo!!! be calling them "chinko duck". The Name is Tecno Mobile! Remember the name cos they ain't leaving your sight anytime soon! The mouth that speaks bad will say good...You'll be sure to see them at WMC Barcelona....Take note! hehehe

NCP:
If it looks like a chinko duck, walks like a chinko duck and quacks aloud like a chinko duck, definitely IT IS A CONFIRMED CHINKO POOH.



This February, We will be expecting the Chinko Duck at World Mobile Congress, Barcelona.

CAN SOMEONE TELL AKINWUNMI AMBODE TO GIVE US WATER WHICH KYN WAHALA BE DIS NAH . HOW LONG ARE WE SUPPOSED TO WAIT FOR LAGOS WATER CORPORATION TO GIVE US WATER BIKO NU ME DON TIRE OO. I GO JUST VEX GO BUY HOUSE DIG MY OWN BORE HOLE !!

AMBODE IS IN A LARGE MANSION WITH 10000HP (IF THAT EVER EXISTS )BORE HOLE GIVING HIM WATER. HOW E WAN TAKE KNOW SAY LAGOSIANS NO GET WATER TO USE BATH? ARRANT NONSENSE!!

Make person try this thing give us feedback nah

Jeezzzz!!!! Can this be true? looks very real though

Now this has to be it. Nairalanders! Who dey use boom J7? Try am confirm to us abeg. Your warranty don cover you.