IT and ITeS supply chain management company Redington (India) Ltd is planning to expand its operations to the North African market, including Morocco, Libiya, Algeria and Tunisia along with some countries in South Africa in next three years, after gaining experience from the sub-Saharan Africa.
The company, which entered Africa in 2003, strategically entered the sub-Saharan Africa with Nigeria and Ghana in the west and Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Uganda in the east by choosing emerging markets driven by rich oil fields, English speaking regions with significant Asian and Indian diaspora to sell its products.
“Building on the experience gained in these countries and armed with a successful business model and an efficient in-country infrastructure supported by experienced people, Redington is now all set to move towards North Africa - Morocco, Libya, Algeria, and Tunisia - and into South Africa over the next three years,” the company said in its annual report 2011-12.
Set up as an entity in Lagos, Nigeria, in 2004, the company has adopted distribution strategies different from other markets like India and the West Asia, to fit into the nature of the African market.
Many of the customers in Africa operated in a very informal environment, selling products like cell phones out of roadside stalls and pushcarts. In some countries, mobile sales are more than fixed telephones and vendors offer mobile accessibility on a per-call basis, apart from offering points to charge their phones using car batteries, it said.
The company is distributing IT hardware products in 12 countries, mobile and smart phones in five and offering post sales support in 10 countries through around 21 Redington service centres.
Almost 60 per cent of the company’s African sales came from the cell phone segment last year.