By EMEKA AGINAM in Malaga, Spain

While the global economy loses about $6 billion annually to the menace of counterfeit phones coming through the grey market, according to latest Mobile Manufacturers Forum, (MMF),  report, Samsung Electronics has said that it would  deepen partnership with the relevant authorities and vendors in Nigeria to tackle influx of fake phones.

The  new report by MMF  showed that   in 2013, no fewer than  148 million counterfeit mobile devices were sold through visible retail sites, with many more expected to be sold in unofficial retail outlets, online auction websites and in local black markets worldwide respectively.

A grey market is the trade of a commodity through distribution channels which, while legal, are unofficial, unauthorized, or unintended by the original manufacturer.
The most common type of grey market is the sale of imported goods brought by small import companies or individuals not authorized by the manufacturer which would otherwise be more e The MMF is an international non-profit organisation founded in 1998 by a number of leading manufacturers of mobile radio equipment, including leading ones like Nokia, Samsung, Apple, as well as network suppliers like Ericsson, Nokia Siemens Networks and Alcatel-Lucent, among others.xpensive in the country they are being imported to.

It would be recalled that   the Compliance Monitoring and Enforcement Department of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), had earlier played host recently to the Director, Europe, Middle East and Africa, of Mobile Manufacturers Forum (MMF), Mr. Thomas Barmuller, for bilateral discussions with the regulator on reassuring the Nigerian telecom consumer of their safety from electromagnetic field (EMF).

The MMF report informed that lab tests on more than 50 counterfeit devices found that most failed basic compliance tests against industry standards for network connectivity, which translated into a very high percentage of call dropouts for users.

According to the report, network coverage was significantly reduced as more substandard devices connected to the network, which created coverage blackspots that could only be fixed by installing 80 per cent more base stations. The report, according to  MMF Secretary General, Micheal Milligan in Brussels, Belgium,  “with the average knock-off phone selling for around $45, our conservative estimate of $6 billion in illegal sales represents a massive financial loss for governments and the mobile phone industry.

“Governments can combat the growing counterfeit phone problem with new technology which can identify substandard devices on the mobile network and permanently block users who don’t change to a genuine product.”