Boom in digital entertainment and e- education in Lanka

Indunil Hewage

Local digital entertainment and e- education industries demonstrate an upward momentum in the recent past due to increasing demand for tablets, smart phones, laptops and many more.

Local IT penetration and literacy is significantly improving and prices of the mobile internet devices, tablets have noticeably come down.

Sala Enterprises and Sala Geo Information System Managing Director Chinthaka Wijewickrama told Daily News Business that there is an enormous potential in the computer hardware and mobile segments which are considered to be virgin markets in Sri Lanka.

“However, Sri Lanka is not in a better position to manufacture IT related products due to scale of the economy. We are not able to go for a mass production or bargain the prices of imported components which are used in manufacturing mobile and computer hardware products. I think local IT market needs global expansion specially in India, Bangladesh, Pakistan where Sri Lanka has duty free trade agreements,” Wijewickrama said.

Sala Enterprise was the first to introduce a "navigation system” to the local market and according to Wijewickrama this segment has a great potential and has become a huge success since it was introduced.

Currently, Sala Enterprise has embarked on a project to set up a dedicated facility to manufacture motherboards, mouse, casings in Sri Lanka with a joint partnership with a well known Chinese company and Sala Enterprise’s investment share of the project is 50 %.