Phone maker, Blackberry, says it is optimistic about the potentials in the Nigerian market – one of its key markets in terms of revenue.
The Canadian smartphone maker on Thursday formally pulled down the curtains on the new Z10 smartphone in Nigeria powered by the innovative Blackberry 10 platform as it looks to claw its way back to the top of the global smartphone market.
“Nigeria plays a critical role in our global business strategy. We will continue to invest significantly in Nigeria. We have talked about the establishment of the apps laboratory in partnership with Lagos State and we intend to use this vehicle to drive growth in this market”, Robert Bose, regional managing director, Blackberry, told BusinessDay in an interview on Thursday.
Blackberry and the Lagos State Innovation Advisory Council on Thursday signed a letter of intent outlining their intention to build a Blackberry Apps Lab in Lagos.
Commenting on the agreement, Waldi Wepener, managing director for West, East and Central Africa for Blackberry, said that with over 250 Nigerian developed apps already available on the next-generation Blackberry 10 platform, Nigeria’s software development community is clearly demonstrating impressive growth and innovation.
“Our commitment to build an Apps Lab in Lagos is a clear demonstration of our long term approach to support the development of a sustainable ecosystem in Nigeria”, he added.
Other smartphone makers such as Nokia, Samsung are all gunning for a significant chunk of the enterprise market.
Bose said the phone company would not relent in its efforts to provide value proposition that meets the needs of enterprise customers in Nigeria and across the globe.
“We are number one in the enterprise market. That is something we are really proud of and it is something we work very hard on. We will continue to bring new enhancement such as the Blackberry balance
BEN UZOR JR
