Lagos — There is yet no study that shows the actual or estimated number of handsets in Nigeria.

At the last count, there was an estimated 12 million GSM lines. That should mean that there are also 12 million handsets. But it does not necessarily follow. Some people have back-up handsets. As a matter of fact, some subscribers just only wait for a new handset to come out before resting the old one. In Lagos, it is fashionable for some people to use a handset for a maximum of three months. Not more. To use a handset beyond three months would be a reduction in their social status. This is one of the reasons why it is difficult to know the exact number of handsets in Nigeria.

New and lesser-known brands are coming in by the day, but the leaders have remained Nokia, Motorola, Siemens, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Sagem, LG, and Alcatel; not necessarily in that order.

In all its acclaimed growth in telecommunications, Nigeria has not attracted the presence of Nokia, not even as much as a one-room office. It has managed to place quite a sizeable number of adverts, but its intention to establish an office in Nigeria has not been officially announced.

Motorola, whose headquarters President Obasanjo visited recently in Schaumburg, Illinois, US, has established a presence in Nigeria for more than 25 years. Infact the company has expanded its office beyond Lagos where the country manager had been directing its affairs for 26 years. Motorola has played a major role in the development of mobile communications in Nigeria. Motorola serves three key markets in Nigeria: two-way radio communications for public safety organisations, mobile communications networks and mobile phones. Its marketing of mobile handsets in Nigeria has not been so fantastic, succumbing easily to the likes of Samsung and LG. Although Motorola has continued to do good business in nigeria, establishing a phone factory is not one of its priorities.

Here comes Siemens, which was synonymous with NITEL in many contracts. At a point in the life of NITEL, a contract would go to another supplier only because Siemens is not interested. The operator has also partnered many private telecom firms in several projects. Manufacturing a handset is however not one of such projects. Now Nigerians wont have to bother about Siemens handsets anymore. It had been sold, at a loss. The company had to pay Taiwan consumer electronics group BenQ about 368 million dollars to buy its loss-making handset division. It is tragic having to pay somebody to acquire your property. But that was what Siemens handset had become. And that is a company which could have established a factory in Nigeria and used that alone to booster its sales.

What the Germans could not see, the chinese had seen. Both Huawei and ZTE, both of China had indicated interest in establishing manufacturing plants in Nigeria.

This is surprising because such money spinning brands like Samsung, even Samsung which had used the nigerian market to come into a strong contention was not contemplating anything of such. Samsung once hat its Africa headquarters in Cote d'Ivoire. When the trouble in that country became too much, it relocated to Kenya. Imagine. The number of Samsung handsets Nigerians buy in a two months, it is doubtful if the Kenyans could buy in a year.

If the managers of LG could see far ahead now, what would be in their best interest to do is to establish an assembling plant in Nigeria, to start with.

As for alcatel and Sagem, the fate of Siemens await them if they continue to stay away from Nigeria where they could make so much money and be the hub supplying handsets to the whole West Africa sub-region.

Nokia launched seven new handsets during the week. Some Nigerians are already waiting for the new products so they could buy. Nokia further announced that it might launch up to 40 new models in 2005. Infact, the spokeswoman, Arja Suominen was quoted as saying: "I'm quite confident we will go over this (target)." With the seven new sets, Nokia had already launched 33 handsets this year.

Sony Ericsson too, a venture of Sony Corporation and Ericsson, also in the week introduced five new phones. Sony Ericsson is regarded as the world's fifth largest phone maker.

For now and for a long time to come, there would be good times at Nokia, at Motorola, at Samsung and at Ericsson. However, for the others, to remain in contention, they need a strong presence in Nigeria. Those who establish a manufacturing or assemby plant early would be the one that would take the whole sub-region. The fate of Siemens await those who do not take to early warning.