Intel recently kicked off its Turbo Nigeria initiative with the Intel Computer Street Faire and Intel Digital Party held in Lagos. The initiative forms part of Intel South Africa`s expansion into emerging IT markets in sub-Saharan Africa.
Says Sam Mensah, Intel`s business development manager for sub-Saharan Africa: "Nigeria has been identified as having huge growth potential for Intel and will serve as the hub for our activities in the West Africa region."
Nigeria is Africa`s most populous nation with more than 120 million people, 6 million of which are considered high-income earners and an additional 60 million in the middle-income bracket. The country has the fastest growing mobile telecommunications market in the world; an adult literacy rate of 65% and a political environment that has rapidly stabilised to make it more conducive to investment.
Says Mensah: "In order to ensure that we were able to make an impression on local resellers and IT professionals, we decided to approach the launch of Intel in a more unique way. Both the Intel Computer Street Faire, which was aimed at resellers, and Intel Digital Party, which focused on the corporate and public sector markets, proved to be firsts for the African continent, combining the serious side of Intel technology with a more informal and fun atmosphere."
The purpose of the two Intel events held in Lagos was to stimulate interest among ICT companies and professionals in Intel technology. At present the company`s market share in the country stands at around 85%. However, it has found that in many areas, users have settled for older technology such as Pentium I and II systems, unaware that it is unsuitable for most modern computing and communications applications. The current PC market in Nigeria sees a 50% share for the small to medium enterprise sector, 30% for government and corporate sector and 20% for consumers.
Said Intel South Africa`s country manager, Steve Nossel, in his address at the start of the Computer Street Faire: "Intel is very serious about our expansion into new emerging markets. We have a goal to get to 20 new countries in 2004 and I am pleased to announce that the country that we feel has the greatest potential is Nigeria. As such we have placed Nigeria on top of our list and this is the first event in our expansion strategy."
The Intel Computer Street Faire attracted more than 2 000 visitors, mostly resellers who were excited at the prospect of experiencing the latest Intel products. The event captured a distinctly West African vibe combined with modern communication and information technology in an experience that could only be described as unique. Intel set up three `usage zones` to demonstrate the various areas in which their technology is utilised. These zones included mobility, which demonstrated the latest Intel Centrino mobile technology, education and entertainment. In addition, the company established a wireless WiFi `hotspot` to demonstrate the benefits of wireless network access.
During the two-day event, which also attracted major international IT vendors such as HP, Acer, Dell and Fujitsu Siemens, Intel signed up its first five Nigerian Intel Premier Partners (IPPs) - companies that will be able to offer their clients high-end Intel-based solutions, as well as more than 150 Intel Product Integrators (IPIs). Guests at the street faire included representative of the Ministry for Science & Technology as well as the president of the Nigerian Computer Society.
Adds Mensah: "One of the most interesting aspects of our Nigerian visit was a visit to the Otigba Computer Village in Lagos - a square kilometre marketplace comprising small shops and stalls selling only computer and communications products. It proved to be an example of IT retailing `Lagos style` with almost 1 500 vendors selling every imaginable brand of product and where it is perfectly acceptable to haggle over the price of a processor, RAM or a hard drive. One of our aims in Nigeria is to provide training to these sellers to enable them to offer their customers newer technology backed by the full support of Intel channel partners in the country."
The Intel Digital Party, held at the Le Meridien Hotel in Lagos, targeted public sector and corporate clients with the theme of `Digital Africa - technology meets tradition`. The event was a branding exercise aimed at informing the more than 400 IT CEOs and CIOs in attendance that Intel was officially in Nigeria and that it maintains its position as a technology leader. Demonstrations included a digital home and digital office where the PC acts as the control hub for appliances throughout the home and office.
According to Nossel, Intel has clear goals in its initiatives in Nigeria. One of the main imperatives is to ensure that the Intel brand becomes a household name. In that respect the company needs to ensure that its many sub-brands, such as Celeron, Xeon, Centrino and Itanium, are better understood.
"Both events were supported by extensive publicity from the various media including print, television and radio," adds Mensah. "To ensure that we were able to get the Intel message out to the people, we organised a competition in conjunction with local radio station Cool FM in which computers equipped with Intel Hyper-threading technology were given away. The competition proved to be a runaway success with more than 3 000 e-mail entries received per day. It also encouraged ordinary Nigerians to talk about Intel and its new technologies."
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