For internet entrepreneur Njeri Rionge, Africa represents the next economic frontier.
She says strong indigenous, African-owned companies are needed to take advantage of the boom times ahead. Ms Rionge is as famous in Kenya for her success in starting up several companies at the same time as she is for Wananchi.com, a cable, broadband and internet-based telephone company.
She started her dot com dream and first big venture, Wananchi.com, with the hope of bringing internet connectivity to the masses.
Today the firm has grown to become the largest internet service provider in East Africa and is worth $173 million (£107 million) a huge sum for a firm with an initial start-up of $500,000 (£308,000).
(via BBC News)
Satellite technology, it seems, is thriving on the continent and is gaining popularity as a credible, cost-effective means of connectivity in Africa. This is one of the key messages to emerge from SATCOM Africa 2012.
Growth of Internet use in Africa has superseded global average in the last decade reaching 2,000 per cent compared to the global’s 480 per cent.
The significant growth is attributed to information technology (IT) developments in the continent in recent years including improved means of connectivity such as links with the global fibre-optic cables, declining prices of computers as well as increasing access to mobile phone Internet enabled handsets.
However, a report by a market research company, Frost &Sullivan, still shows that Internet penetration is still lower in the continent compared to the developed world.
From helping thousands of Kenyan businesses to build their own websites to launching Uganda’s own local version of YouTube, internet search giant Google has ramped up its operations significantly in Sub-Saharan Africa over the past four years. In a continent where internet penetration is still low, estimated at less than 15%, but rapidly growing, the company seems to be on a mission to get more Africans online and to offer users relevant local content.
Google has opened offices in a number of Sub-Saharan African cities, including Nairobi (Kenya), Kampala (Uganda), Dakar (Senegal) and Lagos (Nigeria).
In Kenya, Google’s Getting Kenyan Businesses Online (GKBO) initiative gives small and midsize enterprises (SMEs) the tools to build their own websites for free. Over 11,000 businesses have already created their own websites since the launch of the programme in September this year.
“It’s fantastic to see such an enthusiastic response from local businesses that are eager to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the internet. We really believe that the power of the internet will help them to grow their businesses and give them access to the global village,” commented Olga Arara-Kimani, Google Kenya country manager.
The World Bank’s Wolfgang Fengler has recently written a blogpost titled “Learning from the Kenyan revolution” referencing the penetration and use of not only ICT devices but also mobile money services. He makes optimistic predictions for the futures, viz.,
What are the lessons of Kenya’s ICT revolution for the broader economy of Kenya and for other countries? First, this revolution is not just for the young tech-savvy programmers that huddle at iHub. ICT is no longer a niche sector of the economy. It has become mainstream and affects virtually every actor and every sector of the economy. It’s misleading to talk about a so-called “new economy” because it has in fact changed the way the old economy is operating. Over the next years, the biggest innovations will probably come from the incubation of technology in “traditional” sectors. The financial sector is already in the midst of this transformation, with mobile money as the most visible sign.
This is truly a revolution on many levels observable and prevalent across socio economic strata
(via Our two shillings worth on the Kenyan ICT revolution at The Semacraft Blog)
Major operators are racing for territory in Africa, and recent figures from analysts at Informa indicate why. The region has become the second most connected in the world in mobile terms, after Asia-Pacific, and has the highest growth potential.
At the end of 2010, Africa was in fourth place among mobile regions, but just nine months later had 616m mobile subscriptions, overtaking western Europe during the second quarter of 2011 and the Americans in the third.
“Kenya forms the hub of the east African operation, as it is strategically well-placed to serve a number of other key countries such as Tanzania and Uganda. We also have plans to roll out into Rwanda and Burundi in the near future, and to enter the southern-Sudan region. This investment will ensure that we have the resources and capabilities to successfully roll out into these key regions and secure sustainable market share,” Bosch continued.
According to DiData, IS identified Kenya as a key growth market due to the strength of the local economy and the rapidly increasing data demands in the consumer and corporate markets.
“As greater capacity comes online we are starting to see an increase in the demand for cloud-based services, specifically the delivery of software as a service. To meet this demand IS has made a substantial investment into upgrading its local data centre, to the point where it is currently the only tier 3 data centre in the country,” the group said.
“As the Kenyan market continues to develop as the innovation hub of east Africa and serve as a springboard into the other important emerging economies in the region, it is important that IS establish a strong presence in the market.
The launching of Communication Satellite NIGCOMSAT-1R, scheduled for December this year will save Nigeria about $450 million annually, currently spent on the importation of bandwidth from Europe and America to facilitate internet access, telephony and broadcasting.
Minister of Science and Technology, Ita Bassey Ewa, who disclosed this at a Stakeholders’ Conference on NIGCOMSAT-1R, organised by the Nigerian Communications Satellite Limited (NIGCOMSAT)’s in Abuja said this would reduce the country’s over-dependence on oil, as well as create new sources of wealth and employment. The minister, who was represented by Director of Information Communication Technology, Abdulwahab Jimoh, said Europe and North American markets were saturated, while Africa offers a new and virtually untapped market as sub-Saharan African alone contains 10 percent of the world’s population, but only 0.2 per cent of the one billion telephone lines. He called on both local and foreign investors to take advantage of the super hybrid geostationary quad band satellite. “With the launch the new satellite, there will be opportunities for new business and development and growth in Africa.
One of the social-economic benefits will be youth empowerment through business outsourcing as obtains in the Asian countries,” he said. (via NIGCOMSAT-1R to Save $450m Annually – Minister, Articles | THISDAY LIVE)
Africa has passed Western Europe in the number of mobile connections during the final quarter of 2010, Wireless Intelligence reported on Thursday.
It comes as the telecom market on the continent continues to show marked improvement in both services and infrastructure, especially in North Africa. The new report said that African mobile connections reached 547.5 million during the final three months of 2010, up nearly 20 percent from the previous year.
In comparison, Western Europe reported 523.6 million connections, or an increase of less than one percent from 2009. Also, ARPU declined at a similar rate across both continents, down three percent in Europe and 3.29 percent in Africa.
According to the report, much of that slide was triggered by price wars in Kenya, Tanzania and Egypt.
— Africa passes Europe in mobile connections