Ayo Alonge
The Regional Manager, Toshiba Gulf FZE, Sanjay Alex, has described Nigeria as a key market in storage solutions in West Africa, with a huge business potential for investors in the hard disk marketplace.
Alex, an Emirati, made the disclosure at the Channel Connect Meet held recently in Lagos, when his company’s brand, Toshiba, one of the world’s leading hard disk manufacturers, was relaunched in the Nigerian market.
Alex declared that Nigeria was a key market in West Africa and has huge business potential, while stating the company’s readiness to work with its partners to develop Toshiba business in the Nigerian market. He expressed the belief that, by the third quarter of the year, Toshiba memory products would be available on the shelves of all major retailers in the country.
“Toshiba is planning to enter the Nigerian market with complete range of memory and storage products. We have high quality USB drives, SD cards and micro SD cards, and we are in talks with major players in the Nigerian market for possible dealer-distributor network in the region.
“We have spent about $2 billion on research and development because we realise the market acceptance and goodwill of Toshiba. Toshiba is worth $90 billion and we have over 250,000 staffers. Most people don’t know that we created the world’s first laptop in 1985. We are where we are today because we lead in innovation.
“Since entering the hard disk market in 1967, Toshiba has led the industry for half a century. The company had repeatedly succeeded in making its products top brands for the Nigerian market.
“The global video surveillance storage market is pegged at $38 billion, in 2020. Many of the technologies you see today are innovated by us. Today, you may not see our products in the market as they should but we are always consulted. By June 2019, we would have been everywhere again. This meeting is just to connect people and let them know we have been on the right track.
“In the area of durability, x-ray-proof and waterproof, Toshiba products cannot be compared to others. All of this is to make the Toshiba product the biggest and we believe that, with the collaboration of all, Toshiba can be better,” he said.
Explaining why the Toshiba brand temporarily left the Nigerian market, Alex said: “In 2005, we left the Nigerian market temporarily, owing to the economic situation and currency devaluation and today, we are coming back because we know that the situation is getting better now. The hard disk market is so vast and it is for everyone, be you a student, an artisan or even a journalist. Our unique selling point is that we invest much in innovation. We create the technology ourselves and try to make our products unique. Our hard disks are now in terabytes. We are unique in many ways.”
Having entered the storage industry in 1967 with a 14-inch HDD, Alex added that from the angle of consumer behaviour, Toshiba understands the hard disk market better than other competitors.