EthioBlog

Siemens Ethiopia closes its shop

By Yohannes Anberbir

Siemens, a Germany-based Conglomerate, has been forced to close its local branch, Siemens Ethiopia.

Siemens was the sole distributor of Siemens mobile telephone apparatuses in Ethiopia and had been engaged in network installation; however, Chinese firms and other companies’ provision of the same technologies at a cheaper price have led to its exit from the market.
“Siemens products are up to standard compared with other cell phone products found in the local market, but it’s not proved profitable to stay in the market,” a former marketing department official of Siemens Ethiopia told Capital.

Besides distributing its mobile phones, it also created a significant business environment for other local companies, which were its partners in distributing the phones.
Siemens was also well known in the network installation business. The Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation (ETC) had commissioned Siemens in 2005 to supply fibre optic technology. Siemens was paid around 15.4 million dollars to implement the optical backbone for ETC’s fixed and mobile network in the north and centre part of the country with a total length of approximately 1,700 kilometres.


Read Complete Report from Capital ...