Continuing its commitment to invest in the growth of the African continent, HP today announced its decision to establish new subsidiaries in Angola and Libya.
The subsidiaries will have sales, services and support responsibility for customers in Angola and Libya. In both countries, HP is working with the local administrations to complete formal registration, and expects to be operational in 2010.
This latest expansion will increase HP's footprint across the continent to nine full subsidiaries (Algeria, Angola, Egypt, Kenya, Libya, Morocco, Nigeria, South Africa, and Tunisia) and partner representation in over 50 countries.
These two new subsidiaries will allow HP to better serve its existing customers and achieve the customer proximity necessary to extend its reach to all economic segments as well as local and central government organisations.
Expanding HP's leadership
Today's announcement represents the next step in HP's growth strategy to expand its leadership in the African IT market, and follows a number of major investments in the past few months.
* In June 2009, HP announced that 16 educational institutes across Africa were among 50 Europe, Middle East & Africa (EMEA) recipients awarded “HP Innovation in Education” grants. Each grant is valued at US$100 000 and awarded for innovative teaching and learning projects.
* In June 2009, HP, together with the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO), also announced the opening of 14 additional training centres in Africa to expand HP's youth entrepreneurship and IT education programme 'HP Graduate Entrepreneurship Training through IT' programme (GET-IT). This brings the total number of centres to nearly 100 in 30 countries in EMEA.
* In July 2009, HP announced the creation of 800 new jobs in a new Global Support Centre in Tunis, Tunisia.
* In September 2009 HP, together with UNESCO, announced the expansion of the 'BrainGain' initiative from five to 20 higher education institutions throughout the Middle East and Africa. "Brain Gain Initiative" uses grid and cloud computing to empower university faculty and students who have stayed in their home countries to engage in real-time scientific collaboration with others around the world.
* In September, HP in Africa also completed its first 'Sales University' and hired over 50 graduates into the company.
“The African continent plays a major role in HP's growth strategy. Today's announcement, and our plans for future geographic expansion, illustrates our commitment to current and future customers across Africa. With these investments, I fully expect to see rapid growth in our customer base, revenue and employee numbers across the continent,” said Rainer Koch, Managing Director of HP's Africa region. “HP is excited about the prospects for IT market in African countries and the role IT can play in wider economic development.”
Mr Koch continued: “HP is already Africa's leading IT company. We are the number one (1) vendor in Industry Standard Servers, management software, PCs and printers, and are a leading vendor in the networking, storage and the services market. I believe these new subsidiaries will help us serve our customers better and extend our leadership.”
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(1) IDC market share for calendar Q2/2009
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