Chinese smartphoneproducent gaat Afrika in

Lenovo Group Ltd. (992) will sell smartphones in Africa for the first time before the end of the year with its first release planned for Nigeria as it seeks markets where it can sell directly to customers.

The Chinese company, the world’s second-biggest maker of personal computers, picked Nigeria because, unlike in South Africa, it doesn’t have to work with local telecommunications companies in order to sell its phones, according to Graham Braum, general manager of Africa for Beijing-based Lenovo. South Africa is Africa’s biggest economy while Nigeria is the second largest.

“Nigeria is coming towards the end of the year and then we will investigate the rest of Africa,” Braum said in an interview at the company’s offices in Johannesburg yesterday. “We’re trying to sell off the shelf. We’ve picked the open market.”