Nigerians looking to acquire Starlink internet hardware will now need to cough out N1 million for the complete kit if they are buying from third-party vendors.
BusinessDay found that users can still purchase Starlink at N400,000 through the company’s website as of Friday, January 5, 2024.
However, marketers at the popular Lagos electronics market, Computer Village, said the price of Starlink rose from around N300,000 in November to N1.3 million in January. These vendors are known to purchase the kits in bulk and resell them at higher prices.
“Being one of the prominent members of the dealers inside Computer Village, I still don’t know how this Starlink moved from 300K to 1.3M within 2 months. There was a time we had this plenty inside the market until neighbouring countries started buying it from us and demand surpassed supply,” tweeted @babalakubabayin on Friday.
As of November 2023, Starlink was still sold for N299,000. There are speculations that the price surge is mostly influenced by traders taking advantage of the FX crisis and persistent inflationary forces affecting the price of every commodity in the market.
“Nigerians that sold face masks for N1,000. Something that’s currently N50 after the pandemic. Why are you shocked they’re selling Starlink for N1 million+,” tweeted Kelvin Odanz, a social media commentator.
Starlink had on July 2023 enabled users in Nigeria to pay with the local currency, the naira. This was in a bid to reduce its exposure to the foreign crisis and keep the price of the internet service affordable.
Also, Starlink forbids the reselling of its technology as stated in its purchase agreements.
However, vendors are going on to resell the kits at exorbitant prices, claiming that the help users reduce the waiting time and making the service readily available by importing in bulk.
Those who order from the website need to wait for 1-2 weeks to receive what they ordered. Starlink does not allow bulk purchase on one account. But vendors have found a way to game the system by using multiple accounts to purchase the hardware.
