According to data from the International Trade Centre, Nigeria spent $2.35bn on telephone importation in three years.

The ITC, an international body that focuses on trade, saidThe nation spent $807.95 million on importation of phone sets in 2019, $765.57 million  in 2020 and $772.25 million in 2021.

The body explained that the imported telephone sets included: smartphones, facsimile machines for line telephony, teleprinters, parts of telephone sets, and more.

The data further revealed that most of the phone sets coming into the country were from China ($1.71bn in the time under review). 

Nigeria also imports from other nations such as Hong Kong, Sweden, the United States, Netherlands, Vietnam, Mexico, and others.

The Nigerian Communication Commission, NCC, recently revealed that about 63 million technology devices were sold in Nigeria every year, quoting data from Original Equipment Manufacturers.

The commission revealed that there were about 132 million unique devices on the nation’s telecommunication network in 2020 with the average owner changing a device every six months.

According to Counterpoint Research’s Global Monthly Handset Sales Tracker, the annual smartphone sales in Nigeria grew by 81 per cent year-on-year in 2021.

The Nigerian phone is dominated by foreign players such as Tecno, Samsung, and Itel. While Nigeria has the seventh-highest number of phones in the world, according to the World Population Review, its local phone manufacturing industry is non-existent, and attempts to kickstart it have at best failed to flatter.