The swag of mobile phones and accessories - worth around half a million dollars- is the largest haul of sham Nokia products to be discovered and detained by Australian customs. The counterfeit cargo came from China, which -seems to be the country most of these goods come from," Nokia Australia's product marketing manager Andrew Curren, told ZDNet Australia.
-There have been counterfeit products in the market in Australia in the last two years, but coming in dribs and drabs," Curren said. -Now we're beginning to see big shipments."
On the back of this latest detained load, Nokia has signed up a local private investigation company to help stamp out shipments of counterfeit Nokia products finding their way onto Australian shores.
The investigative company will start at the retail level in Australia and backtrack all the way to the country of origin of the counterfeit stash, according to Curren.
Out of the Asia Pacific region as a whole, Australia has been largely protected against counterfeit importers, but -it was just a matter of time before they got here," Curren said. Now importers are finding better ways of getting into the country, and the Australian counterfeit market is definitely increasing as a result, he added.
"It's hard to gauge how much counterfeit stuff is on the shelves," Curren said. -We need to knock it on the head in Australia before it gets too big...Customs do a great job but they can't stop every shipment."
According to Nokia, it's too difficult to estimate how much counterfeiters are costing the company in lost sales each year. However, in warranty alone the mobile phone manufacturer expects this shipment to cost them in the vicinity of AU$500,000.
Curren believes the lousy quality of counterfeit goods will cause most of this shipment to -fall over" within the warranty period and be covered by Nokia at some point down the track.
However, Nokia claims stamping out these counterfeit scams is not so much about recovering lost sales but about protecting customers. As counterfeit goods don't go through the same safety scrutinisation as the real McCoy, the worse case scenario could see batteries or chargers cause fires or blow up, Curren said.
Curren's advise to dealers that don't want to get into the counterfeit wrangle is to ensure they purchase Nokia products from one of its four authorised distributors: Cellnet, Brightpoint Australia, Roadhound and Tech Pacific.
As the Chinese importer forfeited the fake goods for destruction, Nokia will not be taking legal action - partly due to the cost of the exercise - -and we don't want to look too heavy-handed in the marketplace," Curren said.
