"Do you agree with me that Tecno mobile is losing steam?"

When the Tecno Mobile entered into the Nigerian market in 2006, very few gave them a chance. Nigeria being the fastest growing market for mobile devices in the region, already had other leading global mobile devices taking position as market leaders and brands of choice for the active Nigeria mobile devices consumers.

In its bid to enjoy a piece of the huge market, Tecno Mobile lurched into the market with new strategies to give the market leaders a run.

With the launch of a series of low end affordable mobile devices, which delivered as much satisfaction to consumers, it wasn’t long before the Chinese-made brand enlarged market penetration in Nigeria.

And within a short while of its existence, Tecno was completely transformed from an unknown product into a choice brand.

However, the brand has suddenly began to lose the dominance it once enjoyed. People are beginning to ask questions. Have they reduced their standards?Are consumers losing trust in the devices? Or is the market just too competitive for them. A little insight highlights 5 Things that I think might just be causing the down slide

1. Reduced consumer engagements: It was clear in 2006, what the strategy was; get everyone talking through various direct engagements, and in turn generating huge top of mind awareness. By 2015 these engagements have dropped by more than half, no wonder less is spoken about the brand at the moment.

2. Production of high end products: This is the case of ‘biting more than you can chew’. When Tecno entered the market, in a short while, it became buyers’ number one choice for low end smartphones. Low income consumers, especially students, found it to a substitute for the expensive Samsung, Nokia or Blackberry.

In 2013 they launched the Phantom android pad which enjoyed huge sales because of its multifunction and yet extremely affordable cost. Riding on the back of this success Tecno launched a series of other devices, this time high end. Unfortunately the ‘Cost Vs. Functionality’ of these new set of devices when compared to similar devices from premium brands has not being convincing for this new target audience.

3. Software issues: Well they might be producing devices with great features and still affordable, the truth is quality is always affected by cost. A cheap device always means a little less quality.

The Tecno products might have wonderful features and applications, but have lacked a good operating system and sufficient memory. So over time users have been able to understand that although it’s interesting to take pictures with a 10 Mega Pixel camera phone, it’s useless if it has insufficient RAM; as the expanded memory do no stop it from acting poorly.

4. Huge Competition from other affordable brands: Well once upon a time it was just Tecno for the masses, or rather for the average consumer. Today, we have lots of competing brands who have effectively provided products that are appealing to the market. The likes of Innjoo, Solophone, Be, Wiko, and rebranded Sagem product Infinix which has enjoyed the most market share amongst these low end brands.

For me, I believe that if Tecno intends to successfully reclaim its top spot, it will have to produce improved versions of its devices while maintaining focus in the low end market space.