Cisco earns $750m from Nigeria, others on services

Cisco, a United States (U.S.)-based networking firm announced a yearly revenue of $750 million from its operation in Nigeria and other African countries.

Speaking on Tuesday at the ongoing Cisco Expo 2013 in Sun City, Johannesbourg, South Africa, Managing Director, Africa, Emerging Markets for Cisco, David Meads, said the continent presents huge market potential for investors, adding that dearth of International bandwidth was driving adoption of connectivity.

According to him, Cisco's strategy in Africa was aimed at helping the continent to improve innovation, prosper, sustain growth and enhance social inclusion through life changing solutions.

Speaking on the theme of the expo, tagged: 'Internet of Everything', the Cisco Africa managing director said global internet market could generate up to $14.4 trillion by 2020, adding that the target would be achieved through collaboration between governments and the private sector.

Meads said the huge African market has positioned it strategically, stressing that some operators have started deploying the 4G and LTE technologies ahead of some Western Countries. 'The robustness of the African market earned Cisco about $750 million yearly and the market keeps growing.'

He said that seven countries represent 80 per cent of Africa's total addressable market (TAM). The are Nigeria, South Africa, Kenya, Egypt, Libya among others.

He further stated that about $1.7 billion could be generated from African market offering the same services, also stressed that South Africa, Nigeria and Egypt constitutes about 63 per cent of the continent's potential market.

Cisco also advised service providers, including MTN, Vodacom, Orange, Etisalat among others to be ready for huge data revenues if properly maximised.

Meanwhile, Cisco has projected huge opportunities for African service providers in big data, stressing that data volume has expanded three-fold since 2011..

'Big Data is already transforming businesses today and playing an integral role in defining new processes to aid in new innovation. Today, it is not a question of whether Service Providers in Africa should invest, but how far should they go. At a minimum, they can utilize it internally to transform their operations or expand externally to further benefit their customers as a 'Network Based Data Intermediary. The ability for Service Providers to move more aggressively into this space may be difficult but the prize may warrant further investigation.