Africa is among the top three fastest growing regions for enterprise software developer SAP, and it intends expanding its presence on the continent.
SAP had a good third quarter, reporting double digit growth, but Africa had a "fantastic" period, says Franck Cohen, president of SAP Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA). SAP does not strip out regional financial figures, but reported software revenue up 17% to EUR1 billion, while service revenue gained 19% to EUR3.21 billion.
Cohen says Africa is a key target market and an important growth market for SAP and the company will continue to invest in the region as part of its EMEA growth strategy. He says it is one of SAP's top three performing regions and is seeing economic growth that surpasses that of Western Europe.
SAP aims to expand in Africa and has opened new offices in Kenya and Nigeria, and recently in French-speaking countries, says Cohen. He adds the group will open more offices in future.
In August, co-CEO Bill McDermott said the group aimed to achieve at least $1 billion - or R8.1 billion - in revenue from operations in Africa within the next five years. The group, listed on the Frankfurt and New York stock exchanges, is targeting Africa's fastest growing economies in a bid to reach this "conservative" target, he said.
Cohen says SAP is targeting industries such as utilities, financial services, the public sector, energy, mining, oil and gas.
SAP operates in 134 countries and provides solutions to 24 industries around the world. The group is targeting turnover of EUR20 billion (R202 billion) by 2015, of which EUR2 billion (R21 billion) will come from the cloud.
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