Investor Update: Orange expands operations in Nigeria

Orange telecom expands operation to Nigeria 

Highlights

• Orange, a Pan African cable company is looking to play a big part in the Nigerian telecom sector by investing in mobile, data,  fixed, and financial technology support services 
• They sought the support of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) during a visit and assured a steady investment for the long term 
• The NCC ensured Orange of their support to all investments made  in the Nigerian telecom sector and made note that the laws and regulations were there to help engender a competitive but beneficial market to both consumers and service providers 

Source: TechEconomy.ng

Our Takeaway

Orange operates in 18 countries in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) and has over 130 million customers in the region. The Middle East and Africa region are one of the Orange Group’s major growth engines, with revenue rising 10.6% year-on-year to almost $6.5 billion for the year ended December 31, 2021. Overall, the group had achieved all its 2021 targets and expects to generate an organic cash flow of at least $2.94 billion in 2022. Orange’s entry into the West African nation could be good for competition in the market, which currently has four major players. MTN Nigeria leads with about 76 million subscribers and almost 38% market share at the end of June 2022, according to statistics from market research company Omdia. Airtel and Glo Mobile follow with 56.6 million subscribers each and about 28% market share respectively, while 9Mobile has the smallest share in the market with 12.7 million subscribers and a 6% market share. This is not the first time Orange has set its sights on operations in Nigeria. Back in 2017, when Etisalat Nigeria (which rebranded to 9Mobile) was facing troubling times, there were rumors that Orange was interested in taking a controlling stake in the Nigerian operator, but it never happened.

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Vantage Data Center launches hyperscale center in South Africa

Highlights

• Positioned within the continent’s largest data center market, Vantage opened its first data center (JNB11) in Africa after breaking ground in 2021. 
• The 2-story facility, called JHB11, offers 16MW of critical IT capacity across 130,000 square feet (12,000 square meters). The project, which was launched in 2021, was delivered in 10 months, 10 days ahead of schedule, with zero lost-time incidents over 1.5 million working hours.
• At a cost totaling $1 billion, Vantage’s 30-acre (12 hectares) campus, which house the data center, will include 80MW of IT capacity and more than 650,000 square feet (60,000 square meters) across 3 data centers once fully developed.
• Located in Waterfall City, the campus complements the area’s data center ecosystem and leverages its fiber connectivity to the rest of Africa. The campus also offers renewable energy options, limits carbon emissions, and maintains energy-efficient operations with an industry-leading power usage effectiveness (PUE).
• In June, Vantage announced it had entered a 20-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with SolarAfrica to support the production of 87MWp of renewable energy to supplement the local grid that powers the campus.
• “Our rapid turnaround on the construction of our first Johannesburg facility has allowed us to more quickly meet the demand for hyperscale data centers in the area,” said Justin Jenkins, COO, EMEA at Vantage Data Centers.

Source: ITNewsAfrica

Our Takeaway

This project created hundreds of jobs that will continue into the next phase of construction, and we thank our teams for their dedication and commitment to delivering such a high-quality product for their customers. With the continent’s digital ecosystem rapidly expanding and large swaths of data being produced as a result, hyperscale data centers are becoming increasingly common in Africa. Last year, Africa Data Centres, a subsidiary of Liquid Intelligent Technologies, announced a $500 million investment in 10 interconnected data centers across 10 countries in 2 years. In April this year, Nigerian company Kasi Cloud Limited also announced the commencement of construction of a $250 million hyperscale data center in Lagos, Nigeria. According to a study by Xalam Analytics, after doubling in the four years prior to 2020, Africa’s multi-tenant data center co-location supply is expected to grow by a further 25% by 2023. Despite the growth, the continent currently accounts for less than 1% of the world’s co-location data center supply, signaling a massive room for even more growth

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Nigeria’s NFT and asset tokenization platform Hashgreed raises $1m

Highlights

• Hashgreed is an NFT marketplace, multipurpose NFT, and super dapp platform under the Krosscoin Ecosystem. 
• Its raise of more than US$1 million in funding will go towards scaling across Nigeria and the funding will enable Vinekross to pursue registration with the Nigeria Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as it prepares for an ICO event in the coming months. 
• Users can create, sell and buy art NFTs; shop on Hashdealz, its web3-powered e-commerce category; own fractional real estate NFTs; hire and pay freelancers using crypto and stablecoins; save and earn in dollar stablecoin $BUSD and $KUSD; send money to others via African stablecoins
• Hashgreed also makes NFTs accessible to Nigerians via its own Naira stable coin called $HASH, and plans to release stable coins of several major African currencies shortly. 

Source: DisruptAfrica

Our Takeaway

Regardless of the strict crypto regulations on cryptocurrencies by the Securities and Exchange Commission(SEC) of Nigeria and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), more cryptocurrency startups are springing up due to the large market size, adoption, and penetration of these digital currencies in Nigeria. The new SEC regulation comes with a set of obligations that Hashgreed seems to be following and the new funding will be used to fully register under the SEC Nigeria. They are determined to be the largest native blockchain ecosystem and community in Africa, through very safe and sound tokenomics and governance. Their goal is to be  a company trading on the Nigerian Stock Exchange in a couple of years and they are on the right track to achieve it.