1. Y’HELLO WAR: MTN VS. Globacom, Etisalat VS. Airtel

The year 2012 has been a fantastic one for the telecommunications sector as competition for market share and brand superiority intensified to a whole new level.

GSM operators added over 10 million users in 2012 bringing the number of connected GSM lines in Nigeria to around 124 million With a projected robust growth rate for 2013, the future is surely exciting for the sectors’ stakeholders across the board.
These GSM operators have also showed Nigerians what competition is all about as national and international calling and data rates continue to drop despite infrastructural inadequacies.
Promotional activities by telecom companies accounted for 21% of monies spent on advertisement in 2011 and provided the Nigerian economy with a boost of up to N20 Billion. Now if MTN actually offered a consumer an airplane in 2012 what bigger prize could be on offering this New Year and by who? It’s a guessing game!!!

Brand War Zone:
Airtel 2good classic VS. Etisalat Easy Life 3.0
MTN Smooth Talk VS. Glo G-BAM HI 5ive


2. BEER WAR: Nigeria Brewery PLC VS. Guinness Nigeria

The entrance of SABMiller /Castel and the increasing market share for Consolidated Brewery, has led to cut-throat level competition in Nigeria’s brewery industry. Nigerian Breweries plc armed with brands like Star Lager, Legend Extra Stout and Amstel Malta is set to battle for market share with long term competitor Guinness Nigeria and their Iconic brands such as Guinness Foreign Extra Stout, Harp Lager and Malta Guinness.

Brand War Zone:
Guinness Foreign Extra Stout VS. Legend Extra Stout
Star Lager VS. Harp Lager
Malta Guinness VS. Amstel Malta


3. CASHLESS WAR: Unified Payment VS. Interswitch and eTRANZACT
2013 promises to be a very competitive year for all the firms involved in mobile money, e-payment and card payments as the implementation of the cash-less financial policy gathers momentum.

Interswitch, Unified Payments, eTRANZACT, Telecom operators and Commercial banks are all headed for a face off come 2013 as they attempt to leverage on the financial inclusion strategy of the present administration.

Brand War Zone:
Quick teller VS. Pay Attitude
Pocket Moni VS. Banks mobile money platforms (First Money, EasyMoney and many more )

4. Instant Noodles War: Indomie Noodles by Dufil Prima Foods VS. Golden Penny noodles by Flour Mills Nigeria Plc VS. Honeywell noodles by Honeywell Superfine Foods Limited VS. Dangote noodles by Dangote Group
Indomie noodles have over the years showed that they mean business as they have remained the number one noodles brand in the Nigerian Market. Nevertheless their competitors have continued their onslaught to grab a share of the market. The year 2013 will be an interesting year for all the noodle brands as more Nigerians continue to buy their favorite quick-ready meal.

5. Smart Mobile War: Blackberry VS. Nokia VS. Samsung VS. iPhone
Canadian and Finnish Phone makers RIM and Nokia have both had a torrid 2012 as their sales volumes and revenues decreased substantially for already well-documented reasons. Thus, the Nigerian market alongside other emerging economies have suddenly turned out to be vital markets for Rim and Nokia as they struggle to regain profitability and reverse the erosion of their market shares in 2013.

Samsung Mobile leveraging on the Android Os as well as I-Phone on IOS have both capitalized on Nokia and Blackberry’s market situation to increase their market share globally.

The battle for the market dominance is now primed to continue intensely in 2013 as RIM gets set to roll out its new devices which are powered by a highly improved Blackberry 10 OS, while Nokia targets more market share with its newly released devices running on operating systems Symbian Anna and Belle.

Brand War Zone:
Android /iPhone devices VS. Blackberry OS 10 & Symbian Belle devices.
Samsung Galaxy SIII & iPhone5 VS. Nokia Lumia 920 & Blackberry Z10 (coming soon: Yet to be confirmed by RIM)
6. Money war: First bank VS. Zenith/GTB/Access/others

Nigeria’s Post-recapitalization banking industry has witnessed an unprecedented intensity in competition as Nigerian banks continue to battle for market share and increased profitability.

In 2012, First Bank and Zenith bank continued their dominance of the sector alongside GTbank, Access Bank, United Bank for Africa, Fidelity bank, First City Monument Bank and Skye Bank Further than the pyramid is Eco Transnational, Diamond bank, and Union Bank amongst others.

Meanwhile Keystone, Mainstreet and Enterprise bank seem to have returned to profitability after a brief transition period as a result of the capitalization exercise. This has resulted in improved customer confidence in the banking sector and its players. The year 2013 promises to be an exciting year of brand competition in the financial sector.


7. Gala War: UAC Foods Gala VS. Bigi by Rite Foods, Super bite from Chi Ltd, Meaty/Hotty by Leventis
The gala (beef sausage roll) brand war has intensified greatly since 2010 as Nigerians continue to patronize the beef sausage roll commonly available across Nigeria’s biggest cities and even more so in the streets of Lagos.
The beef sausage roll market is unarguably dominated by Gala which has assumed a reference point within the industry as Nigerians generally refer to beef roll as gala regardless of the actual brand name.
After overcoming the subsidy removal saga earlier in 2012, the entire sausage roll market is well position for a competitive 2013.
8. Service War: KPMG VS. PWC VS. Deloitte VS. Ernst & Young LLP.
The Nigerian professional services industry has never gone through a more competitive period than what we are presently witnessing. Advisory services, Taxation, Audit/Assurance, Management consultancy, compliance and many more are some of the services being provided by some of the world biggest brand names in the professional services niche of Nigeria’s emerging service industry.
These companies continue to increase their services while raising the service bar in order to expand their market share. This is expected to continue come the New Year.

9. Fast moving consumer goods Multifaceted War: Reckitt Benckiser (Harpic, Dettol, Mortein, Air Wick) VS. Procter Gamble (Always, Ariel, Duracell, Pampers) VS. PZ Cussons (Joy, Imperial leather, Premier, Carex, Robb, Elephants, Jet, zip, morning fresh, canoe, nunu, Venus hair care) VS. Unilever (Lipton, Blue Band, Knorr, Royco, Close Up, Lux, Vaseline Omo etc.) VS. Cadbury (Bournvita, Tom-Tom, Trebor Buttermint) VS. Nestle(Milo, Maggi, Nescafe).
This is what has been described as the ultimate FMCG brand warfare as multiple brands continue to jostle for market share amid intensified efforts to meet and surpass profit objectives and volume sales targets by marketing and sales departments across the board.
Though in reality, the FMCG companies do not produce competing products across every market scope, they are nevertheless within the same FMCG market and their relationships are inextricably interconnected.

The FMCG market will not forget January 2012’s Greek gift in a hurry as the infamous subsidy removal debacle created a plethora of challenges for their businesses and market objectives. They however lived to fight again come 2013 and with increasing foreign direct investments in the Nigerian economy, 2013 promises to be exciting or nerve-wracking depending on the side of bottom-line index their strategies lead them.

10. Dangote Group VS. The Nigerian Government.
The Dangote Group’s current interests include cement, sugar, salt, pasta, beverages and real estate with new projects underway in the oil and gas, telecommunications, fertilizer and steel sectors of the Nigerian economy. In view of these subsidiaries and their operations cutting across multiple segments of the Nation’s economy, the Dangote Group will not be fighting the usual brand war with the Federal government neither will they be competing for market share with the PDP led government. Rather the Dangote Group operations will perhaps impact more positively on the citizenry and on the Nigerian economic landscape than the governmental policies and budgetary allocations (its implementations and the lack of it).

The 2013 budget themed the Budget of Fiscal Consolidation with Inclusive Growth while partially commendable for its explicit intentions to foster economic growth, is nevertheless a counterfeit promissory note until the Nigerian Government proves its citizens wrong through a comprehensive budget implementation.

In conclusion, 2013 will be crucial for the voters confidence ahead of 2015 general elections and a comprehensive budget implementation as well as consolidation of administrative efforts to diversify the Nigerian economy is the least Nigerians should expect from the GEJ led Government. As for the Dangote Group I hope they wouldn’t have to receive applications from P.HD and MBA holders for “driving positions” that could be filled by SSCE holders come 2013.

Link: http://go.engineer-ng.net/profiles/blogs/top-10-brand-wars-that-will-dominate-corporate-nigeria-in-2013

This is brilliant.

This is quite insightful.

interesting
The 7th one » Gala war funny

I was expecting to see my company on the list.