Cable& Wireless on Wednesday challenged operators and enterprises tochange their perceptions of Africa and take advantage of its growthpotential.
Research commissioned by the telco found that 61% ofmultinational corporations intend to establish a presence inSub-Saharan Africa by mid-2011, while 81% intend to move into SouthAfrica. However, 50% expressed concern at what they perceived was ageneral lack of infrastructure on the continent.
"The perceptionof Africa is that it is a tough place that's hard to break into," saidTaj Onigbanjo, head of Africa at Cable & Wireless.
"Companiesbelieve there is no infrastructure in place to support theiroperations, that there is social and political unrest; they havesecurity fears, and they believe that there are numerous regulatoryhurdles," he said.
He told Total Telecom that while these views may hold true in some parts of Africa, it would be naïve to apply them to the whole continent.
"Youcould fit the United States, the whole of South America, Western Europeand parts of Asia into Africa, there is such a vastness to Africa thatyou can't homogenise it into one region," he said.
Onigbanjo said that while there is ongoing upheaval in a number of countries, overall, "the situation is improving."
TheAfrican Development Bank noted at last week's World Economic Forum inCape Town that the continent recorded overall economic expansion at anaverage of 5.9% per year between 2001 and 2008.
Onigbanjo saidthat Angola, Uganda and Kenya are likely to be the next markets to seesolid growth driven by natural resources, which will attract investmentfrom a number of sectors, including increased demand for telecomsservices.
He commented that Africa has also largely been insulated from the wider economic downturn.
"I'mnot an economist but if you look at the economics of Africa, it isstill largely a cash-driven [region]. It doesn't have the same toxicdebt, and hasn't been exposed to the recession to the same level as therest of the world," he said.
"People are looking for new markets that are growing that aren't in the grip of the economic recession," he said.
Onigbanjo also said the telecoms infrastructure in Africa is more advanced than enterprises are giving it credit for.
"From a telecoms point of view the whole of Africa is covered by satellite – it's not ideal but the network is there," he said.
Onigbanjopointed out that a number of cable projects currently underway are setto open up new connections between Africa and the Middle East andEurope.
"Africa is the first region where mobile infrastructureis overtaking fixed. Most of the [network] investment has gone intomobile because it is cheaper and easier to install," he added.
"Iam based in Nigeria, which has a population of 140 million people.There are approximately 55 million mobile subscribers and yet thisstill represents less than 50% penetration – this shows the scale ofthe opportunity [for operators], and this is a fairly developedmarket," said Onigbanjo.
"We need to emphasise that companiesdon't have to have the pain of going into Africa and setting everythingup themselves," he said.
"We're already demonstrating thisbecause we've been in Africa for over 100 years, we're showing that youcan come to Africa and get a return on investment," he said.