Financial Times

Come September Sri Lanka’s mobile phone market leader Nokia will be in full force in Sri Lanka to educate the local market on the advantages of using what they call legitimate phones and also to provide a full insight about their products which are manufactured in the Far East and clear any misconceptions that the Lankan consumers have.

Speaking to a group of Sri Lankan journalists in the Chinese capital Beijing recently, Nokia’s General Manager, Emerging Markets Customer and Market Operations Prem Chand said their research had revealed that at present Sri Lanka has a total mobile phone market of about 75,000 to 100,000 monthly of which 80 percent are counterfeit products. He said, “From the information that we have, the market in Sri Lanka is about 80 per cent grey. It is a significant issue in Sri Lanka. It comes out of two things. In Sri Lanka the duty is not yet at the levels of Bangladesh or India. So that itself leads to the trading of the illegal hand sets. The other is about the consumer education campaigns that we are starting to get involved there”.

Chand is due to arrive in Sri Lanka between August 16 to18 aiming to begin a consumer promotion campaign by the end of the month to tackle these issues. The Nokia Emerging Market General Manager elaborated on the misconception about Nokia products that the people in Sri Lanka have perceived.

He explained that Nokia products which are manufactured in any part of the world carries the same quality standards, but different country laws makes it compulsory for them to tag the origin of the manufacturer. As a result hand sets manufactured in Finland and Hungary carry the tag of the country of manufacture.

In spite of this the company maintains the standards of equal quality. For instance the Nokia hand sets manufactured in China is not made by a Chinese company but by the original Nokia company using Chinese labour.

The Nokia plant in Beijing is located on a 75 hectare plot where 20 of their leading suppliers have also set up their own supply plants within this facility.

Chand also said that the Nokia company is hoping to localize their brands which will be more user friendly to the Sri Lankan consumer.

He said that they will be introducing handsets which will carry all instructions in Sinhala and Tamil besides the normal English language. Phones with this facility will only be sold through their local dealers.

“We already have the devices now and what we only need is to launch a local campaign to communicate to the Sri Lankan consumer about these devices. By late August we should have the programme rolling in Sri Lanka. The sets that which carry this facility will be the 1110, 1600, 2310 and the 2610 (series).”

Explaining further Nokia’s role in the Sri Lankan market, Chand said that at present the Sri Lankan market is serviced by hand sets made in China, but they are seriously looking at the possibilities of servicing Sri Lanka through India. He said, “The Indian factory started production in February this year and currently is producing predominantly for the Indian market. For Sri Lanka we are certainly evaluating this prospect. There are bilateral agreements (FTA) between Sri Lanka and India and this will provide consumer benefits and allow cheaper sets to the Sri Lankan consumer through reduced import duties.”