Digitalisation: Nigeria, next stop for data centre investments -DOA

As the conversation on the impact of digitalization across various industries take centre stage at business and intellectual gatherings globally, digital-age law firms like Duale Ovia and Alex-Adedipe (DOA) and a few other TMT experts are at the forefront of driving the discourse across the globe.

The duo of Adeniyi Duale and Leke Alex-Adedipe were spotted recently in London at the eighth TMT Finance Africa 2017, alongside more than 50 Corporate executives from Africa’s largest TMT companies including MTN, Orange, Liquid Telecom, Millicom, American Tower Corp, Jumiah, Airtel Africa, SEACOM and Helios Investment Partners, to discuss investment and growth strategies for Africa’s TMT (Technology Media and Telecom) sector.

Discussing opportunities for investment into vertical services, key actors in TMT examined the huge potential in areas such as B2B services, payments and financial services, and ‘owning as much of the wallet as possible’. Areas around media, content delivery and digital services were also noted as key areas of focus.

DOA partner, Adeleke Alex-Adedipe, who chaired the Enterprise Cloud & Datacentres Panel at the event, disclosed that Africa was the new frontier for data centres and cloud services investments despite its regulatory, financial and economic challenges.

Taking a critical look at the development of the data centre market in Africa, other panel members which include, Ayotunde Coker, Managing Director, Rack Centre; Michael Tobin OBE, an Industry Entrepreneur; Amine Kandil, CEO & Founder of N+ONE Datacenters and Ranjith Cherickel, CEO & Founder of icolo.io. discussed issues traversing data centre operators, investors and service providers.

The considered opportunities for investment across Africa; the development of data centre market in Africa; finance available for building and expansion; the most appropriate data centre models for the region; as well as the growth of cloud-based services and how it impacts demand and Investment strategies for greenfield projects and developing markets.

It was noted that whilst South Africa appears to be experiencing some investment in this regards, Nigeria would be the next stop despite the obvious challenges.

“There is massive room for investment in Africa and equally huge opportunities for existing data centres across Africa,” Panelists agreed.

On core telco operations, most CxOs present at the conference were convinced that there would be more mergers across Africa, as operators focus on rationalizing and strengthening existing businesses. “Tower operators on the other hand could either consolidate or look to the bond or equity markets to fund the next phase of growth,” they adviced.

In the same vein, investors were confident about the market. “The debt and equity markets are open for the right opportunities and larger blue chip private equity backers and funds are starting to get more comfortable in certain sectors,” we are told, and despite significant evidence of innovation and entrepreneurialism, challenges remain for earlier stage funding, with a limited but increasing supply of investors available.