The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has approved sale of 2,155 phone brands and models in Nigeria as at July 2023.
The approved brands and models were said to have successfully met the rigorous type approval standards set by the NCC, regulator of telecommunications industry in the country. They were identified to have qualified for sale to consumers in Nigeria.
It was indicated that brands under the Transmission Group, namely Tecno, Infinix, and iTel, have secured approval for a combined total of 545 phone models for sale in Nigeria.
NCC was said to had earlier approved 2,112 brands in April before approval of the 2,155 models. This was identified as permitting 43 more new phone models in the past three months.
Chinese mobile manufacturers were identified to be major beneficiaries of the approvals, having dominant share of the Nigerian mobile market.
The Executive Vice Chairman of the NCC, Prof. Umar Danbatta, had strongly cautioned against purchasing phones that lack certification from the regulator.
Danbatta had stated that collaboration with other government agencies and consumer education will be required to deal with the issue of proliferation of counterfeit telephone handsets in Nigeria.
The Executive Director was cited to have declared: “The menace of counterfeit and substandard handsets has assumed a global dimension and requires a lot of education on the part of the consumers and collaboration with other government agencies to address it.
“Cases of influx and patronage of counterfeit handsets are more rampant in developing countries, such as Nigeria, where importers bring in substandard phones without recourse to the regulatory type-approval process aimed at certifying such devices as fit for the market”