The brief thoughts we posted last week on the Nhava scandal generated a lot of interest and discussion around the originality of mobile and computer gadgets being sold in Zimbabwe.
Reading the comments today, we came across one by someone going by the name “chimwedzi”. The comment gives some insight into the people behind G-Tide Zim and generally what G-Tide Zimbabwe is. Because it’s buried in the second page of the comments on the article, we thought we’d post it here separately.
The words have been pulled as is. We just paragraphed and spaced it a little to increase readability.
G-Tide was founded by a guy called Chaibva with the assistance of a banker called Gwatidzo who is my personal friend before i left Zimbabwe beginning this year. Originally Chaibva and Gwatidzo went with the idea to Shumba who invested some substantial amount of cash but the business partners had huge differences resulting in the split/demerger of G-Tide sometime last year.
G-Mobile was born headed by Gwatidzo. I have been following these events from outside. G-Mobile from my own research is re branding to something called Swav Mobile and they will be specializing in laptops and cellphones. G-Mobile is doing well currently.
I don’t know about G-Tide. I made efforts to get hold of Chaibva and he refused to shed light sighting confidentiality before banging the phone down. Basically all these guys buy phones from China, re-brand them and sell them to the Zim masses on credit.
I really genuinely love the concept and the guys are making money. My main worry is how these guys are getting the phones get into Zimbabwe (ZIMRA) and if they have an approval to sell the products on credit from relevant authorities. I don’t seek to open a can of worms on the issues i raised but guys please be innovative. Buy the machines that manufacturer the phones then we will start talking.
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Z.T.S International Industrial Co., Ltd was founded in 2002. It is one of the leading mobile phone manufacturer based in Shenzhen China. In Africa and Middle East, our brand G-Tide has been among the top 3 brands in this field. With headquater and major facility in Shenzhen, G-Tide designs and produces a full line of middle-end mobile phones. Our mission is to deliver user-friendly, high quality and competitively priced mobile phones to make communication more accessible and affordable around the world.
With years of development, we have successfully carried out the globalization of services and Logistics. Our overseas branches in Dubai(UAE), Lagos(Nigeria), Dar es Salaam(Tanzania), Hongkong, Kinshasa(Congo), Dakar(Senegal) and Nairobi(Kenya), Ho Chi Minh(Vietnam) are able to provide fast and convenient services to over 60 countries and regions. G-TIDE’s success and competitiveness roots in the uneaqualed recognition and concentration on human technology and sourcing raw materials locally.
G-TIDE holds the corporate philosophy of “COOPERATION, MUTUAL TRUST AND WIN-WIN” to develop together with our partners and create a better life.
http://www.g-tidemobile.com/En/about/index.aspx
An OG G-tide ringtone and design would be nice!!! In the meantime for a lot of people G-Tide will be the wanna-be’s brand. If you buy a G-tide that looks like a black berry it seems like you couldn’t buy an OG Black-Berry which is probably the case but still… If G-Tide had OG designs i’d buy it because it really is value for money. Until then it remains a fake in many peoples minds.
G-Tide was not founded by Chaibva and co as stated by Chimwedzi. It is in actual fact a Chinese brand. For any one keen to start selling these products in any market check out http://www.alibaba.com. I have in the past sourced mp3 players and sold them on ebay, from them and if for example you order 1000 units from a manufacturer (in one go) they will brand it what ever you want e.g. Nhava or what ever other brand you might want. Depending on the size of your order you can even design your own product and out source to these chinese firm for production, e.g. Apple.
So for one to start this kind of enterprise you will need a fat bank balance and access to the internet.
Access to the internet huh?
Just to be clear, I think what Chimwedzi means is the founding of the G-Tide franchise in Zimbabwe.
That G-Tide is a Chinese brand is a known fact and has been extensively covered even here. The official G-Tide franchise offices were launched in Zimbabwe in 2009.
We wrote about the launch in this article: http://www.techzim.co.zw/2009/12/g-tide-launches-regional-office-in-harare/
If you check the LinkedIn profile of SWAV mobile Zimbabwe http://zw.linkedin.com/company/swav-zimbabwe?trk=ppro_cprof You will note that ‘Chaibva’ has been updating that profile. If its the same Chaibva as the ‘Chimwedzi’ means then that story gets even more confusing.