From solar-powered lights to televisions that can withstand power blackouts, electronics mega-firms are wooing African consumers with products that target local, often challenging, environments.
Samsung Electronics, the world’s largest maker of flat panels, memory chips and flat-screen televisions, aims to grow its business on the continent to US$10 billion by 2015 in a five-fold increase from last year.
“This year, we aim to get around three billion” US dollars, said Park Kwang-kee, the company’s Africa president and CEO.
“Our base is still not as big as other continents so ... our growth rate is higher than the other continents. Other than South Africa, we have shown more than 100 percent [growth] for the last two years,” he said.
The IMF predicts Sub-Saharan Africa’s economy will grow by 5.5 percent this year, outpacing all regions apart from developing Asian markets, with some countries like Angola set for double-digit growth.
The continent’s population mix — from massive poverty to a booming, brand-savvy middle class — offers varied opportunities, despite constraints such as a lack of water and electricity, which also force an eco-friendly shift.
“Africa is seen as increasingly important, with higher economic growth rates than Europe or the US and with a fast-growing middle class,” said Nick Kelso, spokesman for Philips Lighting Africa.
“It is also important to realize that Africa is not one entity. Peoples and cultures differ widely and this all needs to be taken into account when designing new product solutions,” he added.
Samsung has a dedicated “Built for Africa” range with the world’s first solar-powered netbook and televisions with power-surge protection, and this year is set to launch an entry-level Galaxy smartphone. The company showed off the products at a show in Cape Town at the weekend.
After opening its Africa headquarters in 2010, the company visited 43 countries to see the local environments in which devices are used, and found durability, efficiency and reliability are key.
“We found that the products we were selling to the advanced market don’t work as much as we’d expect here in Africa, and also the people in the different countries and different continents require different attributes,” Park said.
“For example, for TV, in the field test we found that the failure rate in Africa is almost four times higher than in advanced markets, because of the power fluctuation,” he added.
Research is key to entering the African market, said Roelf Mulder, managing director of South African design firm XYZ Design.
“Big multinational corporations are looking at Africa, saying: ‘How do we need to design for Africa?’ The first step here is to do research,” he said.
“They all want to increase their market share. What is the method for doing that? It’s going to be embedded in research,” he added.
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