Nigeria’s ICT Market Gets Moto’s Nod

Nigeria’s growing international profile as business destination and one of the best places to invest continues to attract investors as more global ICT firms flood the market for huge business opportunities.

A recent Citigroup’s survey ranked Nigeria as the 11th Global Growth generating country, with annual GDP growth expected to stabilize at an average of 6.9 per cent through the next 40 years. It also ranks the country as the 10th fastest growing global economy of 2012.

Carlos Ferraz, general manager, Motorola Solutions – Africa, in a recent business trip to the country noted that Nigeria’s ranking as the second biggest economy in the continent and largest in the West African sub-region makes it even more delightful for investors to court the market.

He stated that for Motorola, government’s recent $1 Billion investment in software incubation centres is an added catalyst for its reinvestment drive in Nigeria.

“Nigeria is the largest trading partner to the United States in sub-Saharan Africa, and it is an ideal location to expand business in other key markets in the sub region like Ghana, Senegal, Cameroon and Ivory Coast,” said Ferraz.

The equipment vendor which acquired Psion for a whooping $200 million in 2012, started expanding its mobile portfolio, including gaining “deep expertise in manufacturing, industrial and supply chain sectors where Psion has traditionally been very strong.” With the new fusion, Ferraz stated that Motorola now offers complete end to end solutions for both knowledge workers and line workers – “both indoors and outdoors.”

He believes that reinvesting in Nigeria shows a commitment to the African continent which it has stayed on for 45 years with a resolve for strong corporate social investment efforts and advancement of connectivity.

Its new strategy includes deepening operations in the Nigerian market in the enterprise mobility solutions space. And to gain acceptability, Ferraz told Nigeria CommunicationsWeek exclusively that it would focus on “Channel development – training, road shows, partner certification, co-operative marketing.”

Strategically, Motorola has chosen a veritable partner – Westcon Africa – in this new resolve to increase market penetration in Nigeria. Westcon Africa is the largest IT distributor in the region and Motorola expects to offer its revolutionary portfolio of Enterprise Mobility Solutions through this channel for better penetration.

In this drive, Motorola is offering a complete range of devices: from ruggedized smart-phones to industrial class mobile devices. Psion acquisition expands mobile computing portfolio offering end to end solutions; comprehensive solutions and apps across numerous vertical markets and sectors and large multi-national user base, many of which are in Africa including DHL, Shell, Unilever and Coca Cola.

John Spreadborough, general manager, Convergence Westcon Africa, concurred, adding that new technological trends includes a shift from “centralized to distributed architecture services at the edge/distributed deployment/distributed deployment and cloud foundations.”

He noted that a user-experience analysis reveals a seamless integration of Wi-Fi to the backend 3G core beam-forming, telco grade AA/captive portal.

According to Spreadborough, “we want Nigerians to be able to enjoy the Motorola enterprise solutions which allow you to work seamlessly throughout the enterprise platform without a break in communication.”