KIANEWS Nokia stays and grows in Africa - Africa Tech Festival 2022
20. 11. 2022 Sunday / By: Robert Denes / Industrial / Exact time: BST / Print this page
F innish telecommunications equipment manufacturer Nokia is committed to the African continent and aims to further grow the market. That's according to Nokia officials who shared the company's growth prospects on the continent as well as its 2030 technology vision at the Africa Tech Festival 2022 in Cape Town last week.
In an interview with ITWeb, Aji Ed, CTO of Nokia Mobile Networks Middle East and Africa (MEA), emphasized that Africa is important to Nokia.
"We have been here for many years. In this respect, Nokia, Siemens, etc.
"We have worked with almost all operators. If you look at sub-Saharan Africa, we have been present in most of the key countries like South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania, Angola, etc. If you look at the key carrier groups, we have a good deal with those carriers and we hope to really increase our market share, and that's our goal."
Steph Delvoye, Global Head of Marketing, Mobile Networks, Nokia, added: "We discussed future growth opportunities and maybe it's time to re-evaluate the BRICS countries because some of the BRICS countries are a bit more 'complicated' these days and we should add some African country... that's what we mean."
“We're seeing growth,” Delvoye reiterated. “We see that African countries tend to grow very fast, so growing countries need a lot of new technology.
“Our MEA team has a strong market focus. We are in this market to survive and grow.”
Regarding the 2030 technology vision that the company's chief strategy and technology officer, Nishant Batra, presented last year, Delvoye said that Nokia sees several trends worldwide.
“Like it or not, there is a bit of deglobalisation – we are seeing changes in world powers. We see stage-driven innovations in network connectivity, as well as everything related to cyber security and energy efficiency. We consider these to be very important elements to be solved.
“There are also technological revolutions that we are facing, such as Web 3.0, the metaverse, etc. They overlapped – all artificial intelligence, ML oriented. It's everything we expect, but we're still using technologies like 5G.”
Ed added: “Regardless of Africa or anywhere else, we are in the phase where 5G is being rolled out. 5G was introduced in Korea, Japan or the United States nearly four years ago. In the Middle East it happened in 2020, and in Africa it is now - the time has come.
“In South Africa, the country has recently auctioned spectrum and this will enable 5G, all MTN, Vodacom etc. with service provider. Rain's 5G network has been up and running for a while, and Vodacom has the same, albeit in limited quantities. spectrum.
“We can witness similar activity across the subcontinent. In sub-Saharan Africa, the introduction of 5G is on the agenda. From Nokia's perspective, one of our main focus areas is the 5G portfolio.
"We would also like to connect the unconnected, bringing connection solutions to rural areas. In cities or urban areas, 5G is a perfectly good choice. However, providing broadband to rural areas requires cheaper solutions and high-coverage solutions, which is one of our focus areas.”
In 2020, for example, Nokia announced that it had boosted Vodacom's 5G network by deploying 5G radio, core and wireline network solutions across the mobile operator's network.
Vodacom uses Nokia's 2G, 3G, 4G and fiber access networks, as well as 5G wireless access and mobile broadband services.
Similarly, in 2019, Nokia and mobile-only data provider Rain announced the launch of the first commercial 5G network in Cape Town, following the first 5G deployment in November 2018.
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