Apple announced on Friday it will launch its first online store in India on September 23, marking its major step to expand in the South Asian country.

Recent conflict between China and India appears to have opened opportunities for non-Chinese smartphone companies to expand their market share in India.

The Indian smartphone market is dominated by Chinese companies like Xiaomi and Oppo that have used affordable prices to win over Indian consumers.

Before now, the California-based company has used third party vendors and ecommerce operators such Amazon and Walmart to sell its products in India.

Apple accounts for only one percent of all smartphones shipment to the huge Indian market, far behind Chinese companies and South Korea’s Samsung.

Therefore, the world’s most valuable company selects September 23, which coincides with India’s holiday season to unveil its online store in the country.

Apple plans to offer more than sales through the retail platform. The company said other services on the online store will include personalizing some devices, including iPads, with engravings, and assistance will be offered in English and Hindi to allow customers to personalize their device according to their preferences. The website will also allow customers to configure Mac laptops according to their needs.

India has become a top choice destination for tech companies following Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s digital economy campaign.

However, Apple’s decision to open an online store will cause disruption in India’s online retail ecosystem, particularly for brick-and-mortar retailers. The pandemic and e-tailers already have a serious bearing on them.

In May, Samsung and Facebook partnered to train over 200,000 brick and mortar stores selling its phones to use social media for sales and marketing.

While there has been an increase in online activities including smartphones sales in India, the cost of devices has become a major challenge. As part of its strategy, Samsung initiated installment-payment for its customers and incentive schemes designed to attract more consumers to its base, including offering students discounts on some devices.

Apple doesn’t seem to be ready to lower the cost of iPhones or introduce other incentives to woo consumers. Its objective seems to be about opening an online store where its customers can purchase its devices in India. So the smartphone competition will be among players who have devices for the majority poor Indians.

However, market experts believe that Samsung stand more chance to gain the market with its strategy.

“Samsung is India’s No. 2 smartphone brand after Apple by image. So a phone priced between 6,000 rupees to 15,000 rupees from Samsung is very well placed today to capture market share from Chinese rivals,” said brand strategist Harish Bijoor.

The cheapest iPhone in India costs about 31,500 rupees, while the cheapest Xiaomi is around 7,500 rupees. So the smartphone market competition is between Samsung and Chinese companies, and by extension, Jio Reliance that has partnered with Google to produce affordable smartphones en masse for poor Indians.

Apple assembles some of its smartphone models, including the iPhone 11, at Taiwanese contract manufacturers Foxconn and Wistron’s plants in south India. Foxconn plans to invest $1 billion to expand the plant.

While Samsung has a mega mobile phone manufacturing plant in New Delhi, where it tests new devices and assembles them for export.

Facebook is planning to open an office in Lagos Nigeria as part efforts to expand its business in Africa, the social media company announced on Friday.

The office, which will serve as a support center for the Sub-Saharan region is expected to become operational in the second half of 2021. The Silicon Valley giant said the office will be home to several teams across its business including sales, partnership, policy and communications. And it will also be the first in the continent with a team of engineers.

Facebook’s head of new product experimentation, Ime Archibong said the Lagos office will present many opportunities in digital innovations, especially for Sub-Saharan’s young talents.

“The opening of our new office in Lagos, Nigeria presents new and exciting opportunities in digital innovations to be developed from the continent and taken to the rest of the world. All across Africa we’re seeing immense talent in the tech ecosystem, and I’m proud that with the upcoming opening of our new office, we’ll be building products for the future of Africa, and the rest of the world, with Africans at the helm. We look forward to contributing further to the African tech ecosystem,” he said.

The Lagos office will be the second in the African continent, after its Johannesburg, South African office was opened in 2015.

Since 2018, Facebook has been investing and promoting innovative ideas through partnership with other tech companies in Lagos. The company unveiled the NG_Hub in 2018, in partnership with CcHub, and in 2019 launched the Small Business Group (SBG) Operations Center in Lagos, in partnership with Teleperformance.

The SBG is designed to support small and medium businesses across Sub-Saharan Africa through community programs as well as marketing training programs, all aimed at enabling SMBs to accelerate the growth and development of their businesses.

The social media giant said it has made tremendous investment progress since 2015, when it opened its first office in Africa, which supports the continent’s tech ecosystem. The office has been responsible for providing reliable connectivity infrastructure and helping businesses to grow locally, regionally and globally.

The progress was recorded in three major programs which include the SMB Grants in Nigeria and South Africa, which provides a combination of cash and ad credits to help over 900 small business impacted by COVID-19 pandemic.

The development of 2Africa, the world’s largest subsea cable project that will deliver much needed internet capacity and reliability across a large part of Africa. And ongoing training programs across the continent which support students, SMBs, digital creative, female entrepreneurs, start-ups and developers.

Nunu Ntshingila, regional director, Facebook Africa said the new Lagos office will help in delivering services to the social media’s clients across the continent.

“We’re delighted to be announcing our new office in Nigeria. Five years on from opening our first office on the continent in Johannesburg, South Africa, we’re continuing to invest in and support local talent, as well as the various communities that use our platforms.

“The office in Lagos will also be key in helping to expand how we service our clients across the continent,” Nunu said.

Nigeria is a strategic location for the tech ecosystem and Lagos is at the helm. But while there has been tremendous interest in the city so far, infrastructural factors have stymied the desire of many tech companies from setting up office in Lagos. The 2020 Smart City Index report ranked Lagos 109th of 109 cities, a 7 points drop from its 102nd position in 2019. The report highlighted priority areas such as security, affordable housing, unemployment, road congestion and health services as reasons behind the significant drop.

In a matter of weeks, Nigeria will turn 60. Each time I think about this, I ask myself if we are growing up or growing old. If we are growing up, we should have technological advancement, better infrastructure, good education system, lower poverty rate, access to good medical care, you name it. But then, everyday, instead of saying that things are getting better, we continue to talk about “the good old days”.

As a child, my parents used to talk about those “good old days”, when the country was good. Then, they will say that we, the children, are no longer enjoying the country because it has been messed up by the leaders. It was as if every good thing happened in their time. Today, we are telling our own children that we ourselves enjoyed the “good old days”. Funny, but it is still true. Then I don’t have to worry about being abducted on the street. I don’t have to be afraid of my church being bombed. I don’t have to worry about bandits coming into the market to open fire on the crowd. I don’t have to worry about Yahoo Boys hacking into my account. Indeed, then was still the good old days, even if we didn’t drink the kind of condensed milk my mother drank in her own good old days.

True, a lot of good things that exist today were not there in those days. For instance, then if you want to transact business with someone in Lagos, you have to travel to Lagos to do that but it’s no longer like that today. Unlike in those days, now we have computers, cell phones, internet services, and … what else? Nothing. You may talk about one or two equipment that weren’t there in those days, but we were doing well without those things then. Did our power supply improve? No, instead it got worse. Yes, there were lesser houses then and rural electrification wasn’t as it is today. But then, what’s the essence of having high tension wire pass through the villages when light doesn’t shine in their bulbs? So, it is still as if they were not connected to the national grid.

What about the other systems? Yes, the financial sector is making progress. That’s good. But until they make it convenient for people to stay in their houses and perform all transactions, they have not grown that much. The only thing they saved us from is lining up for hours while the cashiers go through six-inch volume ledgers to find our account details. But we still cue up in banks and we still spend hours there. So they haven’t done much.

What about our laws? The other time somebody asked me why Nigeria still sentenced people to death by hanging. I didn’t know what to tell her but I hope she doesn’t come back to ask me why castration and removal of fallopian tubes should be the best punishments for rape. Obviously, while some countries are moving forward and thinking of how to correct offenders, we are busy setting up laws that will maim then for life. Our law is nowhere close to good, at least not for now.

I don’t need to talk about our political system because we all know that it is not for the “good guys”. Neither do I need to talk about our educational system, which when COVID-19 breeze blew, our nyash opened for the whole world to see.

Let’s face it, Nigeria is not growing up, neither is she turning old. She is what we call “Agadi-Nwanyi-Baby”. She has grown old enough to act like an adult but she is still holding tight on her childish characteristics. She is swinging forth and back like a pendulum. Today she will do well; tomorrow she will go back to square one. But then, some people are making sure that the pendulum swings back. Some people do not want to see the country move forward because they reap out of its confused state. Unless these people are called to order, this country will continue to swing forth and back until it breaks out of the hinges and crash land.