French phone, Wiko, launches 10 phone models in Nigeria

France’s Wiko, the “fastest-growing phone brand in Europe”, will formally make its entry into Nigeria on Wednesday, October 22, 2014.

Wiko is introducing to Nigeria 10 of the 22 models in its portfolio, as it seeks a share of the Nigerian phone market estimated at 2 million units monthly.

In 2013, Wiko was the second-largest European phone model by sales numbers, and the continuing growth is rapid.

Six of the 10 models already at the retail end in Nigeria are smartphones. They include the high-end Highway, Rainbow, Bloom, Lenny, Sunset and Goa. The feature phones are Kir-3, Riff and Lubi3.

Style and affordability are key attributes of the Wiko range, its officials say.

Ahead of its formal launch, Wiko Mobile took 12 channel partners on an excursion to Dubai to interact with other partners across the globe, as it rolls out across the world.

The Nigerian channel partners met with their counterparts from Kenya, Vietnam and Saudi Arabia, the countries of interest.

According to Mr. John Peters, country sales manager, Nigeria, the Dubai excursion enabled channel partners from Nigeria interact with other Wiko associates around the world to understand the Wiko brand culture, brand vision and brand attributes.

The channel partners were drawn from key markets across the country, underlining the vision of the brand to take a significant share of the phone market from onset.

“This is to enable them grasp the concept of how Wiko intends to operate in all the countries they will be launching their product – countries like Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Kenya and Nigeria,” Peters said.

“So all representatives from these countries were brought to Dubai so that they could get a full detail of what Wiko is all about. It was important that Nigerian Channel Partners understand the Wiko story and know what it specifically intends to do market-wise, coverage-wise and channel-wise.

“Wiko comes with a good pedigree, as one of the foremost phone brands from Europe and the third largest smartphone vendor in France with over 2 million unit sales by end-2013.”

The phone company has subsidiaries in more than 10 countries in Europe and elsewhere.

The Nigeria launch is the second formal launch in Africa, after that of Kenya in September.