THISDAY Awards: Nominees For Brand of the Year

Nominees: Brand of the Year

Indomie

Talk of a dogged and consistent brand with an intentional approach to rule the market and Indomie will readily come to mind. Though it’s often argued that its early entry into the market is the major advantage it has over competitions, the story of Indomie as a market leader is more than that.

From humble beginnings in 1995 at a time noodles was alien to the Nigerian market, Indomie was introduced with a bang and recorded an immediate hit. However, despite it’s immediate success story, the promoters of the brand didn’t allow complacency to discourage them from pushing in all fronts and deploring all known marketing solutions, whether below the line or above the line, including advertising, sponsorship, experiential and Public Relations. Within a short period, Indomie became a household name in Nigeria, and a market leader in the instant noodle industry, through a combination of factors, including early entry, Consistent quality, Localized product offerings, memorable advertising and Wide-reaching distribution.

Globacom

Globacom is Nigeria’s indigenous telecoms giant, owned by Mike Adenuga (Jnr) that was enlisted into the Nigerian telecoms market in 2003, two years after MTN and Econet Wireless (Now Airtel) had rolled out their commercial GSM services in Nigeria, while offering per minute billing system that raised the cost of telecoms services to the high roof.

Globacom rolled out in 2003 with per second billing system, a development that crashed the cost of telecoms services at a time when the first two GSM telecoms operators had told Nigerians that per second billing was not possible in Nigeria.  

Globacom, in 2010 berthed its submarine cable called the Glo1 in Nigeria, from the United Kingdom, with a capacity of 640 Gigabit per second, stretching 9,800km, designed to enhance broadband and internet penetration in Nigeria.

MTN

MTN Nigeria is the first telecoms company in Nigeria to roll out its commercial GSM services in 2001. Today, it is the largest telecoms network in Nigeria, with a subscriber base of 80.4 million and a market share of 51.09 per cent as at October 2024. MTN has also maintained a leading position in the mobile number portability service, which allows telecoms subscribers to port from their original network to another network of choice, in search of better service quality, while still retaining their initial GSM numbers on the new network. 

MTN is also the first telecoms company in Nigeria to launch 5G services. During its 5G launch in September 2022 in Lagos, the telecoms giant promised to carry out 5G commercial launch in six other cities, which include: Abuja, Port Harcourt, Ibadan, Kano, Owerri, and Maiduguri.