Can Gionee win the War with A1 Smartphone?

The war among mobile phone brands in Nigeria reminds one of the cola wars of the seventies, where competing brands threw jibes at one another via marketing communication materials in order to woo consumers. Although the feud really heated up with the Pepsi Challenge in 1975 —which prompted Coca-Cola’s horrific New Coke debacle — the brands have been fighting each other for more than a century. Same seems to be the case among mobile phone brands in the Nigerian market.

Checks by Daily times reveal that marketing has assumed a new dimension in the twenty first century. As a matter of fact, MTN General Manager and Marketing expert, Kola Oyeyemi best captured it in one of his books; ‘kill or get killed’. According to the book, marketing is a battle ground where marketers deploy all forms of marketing skills to bring down their competitors. In addition, Innovative marketers use unique marketplace insights to come up with products, services, or solutions based on untested ideas. For example, P&G and other consumer-facing companies take that broad view of innovation at a time.

To this end, the battle for the market dominance is now primed to continue intensely in 2017 as Gionee, a smartphone company, has officially launched a brand new smartphone A1, at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2017. This new member will carry on Gionee’s product DNA, a long-life battery, while also equipped with a sensational selfie camera, and dual cameras for enhanced photo quality.
While Tecno appear to have finally dethroned Samsung as the largest phone brand in Nigeria, it may have to engage in another battle for dominance in Nigeria; a country with the biggest Africa Smartphone market and powering millions of active mobile lines. Tecno had earlier locked Nigerian market with the company selling series of phones and has taken the front seat in the market, the birth of Gionee has become obvious and a subsequent decline in the overall market share of Tecno.

Although, the position of Samsung, Techno, and other brands of mobile phones in Nigeria can’t be ignored, Gionee has managed to carve out an identity for itself which is proven by a large number of Nigerian youths using the android smartphone from Gionee. One of the most popular, and affordable smartphones the company has produced is A1.

Launched at the just concluded world mobile congress, the phone received great review score from reviewers in Nigeria with its long-life battery, with outstanding selfie features and performance.
With Gionee’s new product, users will be able to capture their unique beauty through the camera. Moreover, the new device will be equipped with a function that will allow users to tailor the lighting effects to that of a professional photography studio.

Experts posited that one strategy that Gionee could adopt is making more culturally relevant and desired mobile content. Record shows that Google Play is currently the most-used app store and Gionee could capitalise on this by creating not only popular entertainment apps but apps that are wanted in emerging markets, such as apps based around health and education. Mobile content and applications have proven to be very successful in Nigeria and English lessons in Brazil.

Understanding audience is key and Gionee is really taking that next step by thinking about how feature phone users all over the world can update their device in order to affordably and reliably access the internet.

For Gionee, the dice is cast, and the ocean is crossed there is no going back. And the atmosphere is no doubt changing for arguably the leaders -Tecno, it is no longer the usual business as Gionee has silently entered into the Nigeria mobile market with smartphones effectively running on Android backed by an equally reliable hardware manufacturing standard. Both Tecno and Gionee smartphones are function-rich, have sweet price spot but Gionee is competing against itself with incredible smartphones while Tecno rely on its previous success to remain in business.

The entrance of Gionee mobile phone brand and the increasing market share for tecno, has led to cut-throat level competition in Nigeria’s Smartphone market. Analysts are of the view that if only Gionee can sustain the tempo with convincing marketing material, they can emerge the leading brand in Nigeria mobile phone market in no distance time. Nevertheless, Nigerian consumers are still the ones to decide.