Finnish telecommunications equipment maker Nokia is committed to the African continent, with ambitions of further growth in the market.
This was the word from Nokia officials, sharing insights on the company’s growth prospects on the continent, as well as its technology vision 2030 on the sidelines of the Africa Tech Festival 2022 in Cape Town last week.
In an interview with ITWeb, Aji Ed, CTO of Mobile Networks Middle East and Africa (MEA) at Nokia, stressed that Africa is important for Nokia.
“We have been here for many years. Nokia, Siemens, etc, have a long legacy from that perspective.
“We have been working with almost all the operators. If you look at Sub-Saharan Africa, we have been present in most of the key countries, such as South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania, Angola, etc. If you look at the key operator groups, we have good business with all these operators and we hope to really increase our market share and that’s our goal.”
Steph Delvoye, global head of marketing of Mobile Networks at Nokia, added: “We were discussing future growth opportunities and maybe it’s time we do a re-evaluation of the BRICS, because some of the countries that are in the BRICS are a bit ‘more complicated’ nowadays and we should add some African countries…that’s what we think.”
“We see growth,” Delvoye reiterated. “We see that countries in Africa in general are growing very fast, so growing countries [require] a lot of new technologies.
“Our MEA team is strongly focusing on the market. We are in this market to stay and to grow.”
On technology vision 2030, which the company’s chief strategy and technology officer Nishant Batra introduced last year, Delvoye said Nokia sees a couple of trends happening worldwide.
“Whether we like it or not, there’s a bit of deglobalisation – we see changes in world powers. In the case of network connectivity, we see stage-driven innovations, as well as everything that is cyber security-related and energy-efficiency. We see these as very important elements to solve.
“There are also the technology revolutions that we’re facing, like Web 3.0, the metaverse, etc. They have overlapped – everything is AI, ML-oriented. This is all that we expect but we are still deploying technologies like 5G, for example.”
Ed added: “Regardless of Africa or whichever other place, we are in the phase where 5G is getting introduced. In Korea, Japan or the US, 5G was introduced almost four years back. In Middle East, it happened in 2020, and in Africa, it’s happening now – this is the time.
“In South Africa, the country recently auctioned spectrum and that will enable 5G introduction, with all the operators MTN, Vodacom, etc. Rain has had its 5G network running for some time and Vodacom has been the same, albeit with a limited amount of spectrum.
“We are witnessing similar activity across the sub-continent. In Sub-Saharan Africa, 5G introduction is top of the agenda. From a Nokia perspective, one of our main focus areas is the 5G portfolio.
“We also want to connect the unconnected, bringing connectivity solutions to rural areas. In the cities or urban areas, 5G is a perfectly good option. However, providing broadband connectivity in rural areas, there needs to be cheaper solutions and high coverage solutions, which is one of our focus areas.”
Primary focus
Nokia used to be the world’s biggest cellphone brand, before selling its mobile phone business to Microsoft in 2013. Microsoft had the licence to use the Nokia name on its smartphones only until 2016.
Following this, Nokia sold its rights to HMD Global, a Finnish company manufacturing new devices running Android under the Nokia name.
Since the sale of the mobile business unit, Nokia has shifted its focus to selling high-end networking gear and software to telecoms companies and internet service providers.
In South Africa, the Finnish company works with all the operators, as noted by Ed.
In 2020, for example, Nokia announced it had boosted Vodacom’s 5G network by deploying its 5G radio, core and fixed network solutions across the mobile operator’s network.
Vodacom is using Nokia’s 2G, 3G, 4G and fibre access networks, as well as 5G fixed wireless access and mobile broadband services.
Similarly, in 2019, Nokia and mobile data-only operator Rain announced the launch of the first commercial-ready 5G network in Cape Town, following the deployment of the first 5G site in November 2018.
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