Smile Communications Nigeria Limited (SCNL) has launched West Africa’s first LTE voice over broadband service in partnership with Samsung Electronics West Africa (Samsung)
The launch of the service brings high quality and improved voice and video communications to the country, enabling faster and better quality video calls, faster music and video streaming, as well as faster downloads. The 4G LTE mobile network will also allow owners of Samsung’s Galaxy S6 Edge smartphone to use their devices to browse the Internet faster.
Smile’s parent group had recently raised US$365mn to expand its 4G services. Michiel Buitelaar, managing director of SCNL, while speaking at the launch event, said, that the funding, along with the partnership with Samsung, has helped the company reposition itself to transform the telephony experience of Nigerians.
“With the US$365mn funding, we are ready to double our network output; spread to different cities and continue enhancing our network capacity by next year. So, we are excited to work in partnership with Samsung which invests in R&D, understands the market and has unleashed the first LTE compliant smartphone in Nigeria.”
Alero Ladipo, chief marketing officer at SCNL, said that her company was specifically focused on the importance of partnerships of this nature to deliver on the end-to-end needs of the customer. “The customer experience at our shops should create a lasting impression with the customer. A customer must enjoy the simplicity of the service and leave ready-to-go. Our partnership with Samsung gives the customer the opportunity to own the latest Samsung LTE compliant smartphone, a 5GB bundle SmileOn plan for a fixed price.”
