Huawei 1st Global Connectivity Index Covering 90% World Population

Huawei, leading global information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider, at the Huawei Cloud Congress West Africa 2015 released the Global Connectivity Index (GCI) on the region.

While releasing the report at the event held in Lagos on Thursday, Mr. Peng song, president of Huawei Western Africa Region, said that it covers 50 countries including Nigeria among others and 90% of the world's population.

The 2015 GCI sheds light on the growing opportunities around the world.

Majority of developed countries are “Leaders” in the index. The United States ranks the highest among surveyed countries with Sweden, Singapore and Switzerland leading the GCI.

Chile, China, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) lead the developing markets, with all three ranking in the high teens to low twenties overall.

Developing market leaders are characterized by strong mobile adoption and overall access that is often comparable to developed markets, while typically lagging behind in terms of data center investment and other core elements of ICT infrastructure.

Datacenter investment by developed countries is three times that of developing countries, which is the major catalyst of cloud proliferation as “the edge does not exist without the core.”

Rankings 47th in GCI, Nigeria is among top 3 emerging broadband markets.

Nigeria has a small fixed base but huge potential in the uptake of mobile products as it is one of the world's largest mobile subscriber markets and offers impressive opportunities primarily in the mobile broadband space, where rapid m-Commerce uptake is driving market growth.

Nigerian's are the highest number of internet users in Africa all of which accumulates to an improved potential within the country.

Overall, the 2015 GCI shows that 20% growth in ICT investment will increase a country’s GDP by 1%. It also identifies five enablers of digital transformation – data centers, cloud services, Big Data, broadband, and the Internet of Things.

These technologies represent the targets that stakeholders should focus their investments on in order to most efficiently transform their economies for the digital age.

Huawei emphasizes three recommendations for a better connected West Africa: Increasing Datacenter Investment, Developing Economies Need to Moving from Investing in Supply to Building Demand and Learning from Developing Countries’ success To Become Global GCI Leaders.

All economies are digitizing, and the GCI provides a guide of who’s ahead, who’s behind, why, and who is poised to move up or back.

Mr. Peng Song, president of Huawei Western Africa Region, said “The Global Connectivity Index is not merely a ranking of countries. We see it as a platform to partner with policymakers and enterprise leaders to identify, harness, and create new digital economy opportunities with the aim of building a Better Connected West Africa.”

Huawei forecasts that by 2025, as many as 100 billion connections will be generated globally, 90 percent of which will come from intelligent sensors.

This increase will be attributed to enterprises becoming enabled by the internet.

By leveraging connectivity to streamline business processes, reduce costs and improve efficiency, enterprises will drive innovation and move the focus from a consumer driven internet to an industrial one.

Peng added, “Make IT simple, Make Business Agile. It is an amazing era with rapid growth and data explosion. In this dynamic environment, Huawei will continue to invest in IT industry, emphasizing on the concept of being integrated, customer-centric and providing customers with innovative, differentiated, leading-edge products and solutions. "

Also, Huawei launched the FusionCloud Solution and OceanStor V3 Converged Storage solutions at HCC.

Accenture, Etisalat, Fidelity bank, Intel, SAP and other Huawei partners shared the cases of deploying Huawei enterprise business solutions to enable the business success.

Participants at Huawei Cloud Congress (HCC) West Africa 2015 in Lagos on Thursday.